Adventure of a lifetime
by Goddess of glam
Summary: What happens when the four princesses of the light side of Quifilia don't agree on arranged marriage and run away? What will happen? Well it appears to be a magical adventure of a lifetime for them. sasusaku inoshika nejiten naruhina
1. She'd be there

Chapter one: She'd be there

* * *

"But father it's not fair!" the pink haired princess yelled out and ripped off her tiara, which until then was beautifully placed amongst her shiny and luscious hair that barely graced her shoulders. Tears nearly fell from her emerald eyes when her father didn't even twitch from her pain, did he really not care? Sakura was a simple girl who never asked anything from her parent, who did everything she was told and who rarely wanted anything in the world, but to ask, no _demand_ , her to do this? No, that's where she drew the line.

"Sakura, there is nothing more I can do. The oracle gave us one last chance to unite the light side, you can't fight that." Her father spoke out, the king of the southern kingdom of Quifilia. Sakura stared at her father, who didn't seem to care about her distress. She felt a tightness in her chest, as if her dress was getting smaller by the second. She soon wouldn't be able to breathe when looking at her father's emotionless face. But then something in her just snapped.

' _Can't fight that? Ha, I'll show you..' The princess thought as she bit her lip to the point where she could taste the warm red liquid in her mouth._

"We'll see about that." she muttered as with her last look she glared at her own father. She was holding back immense rage that was boiling inside her. No way anyone was gonna do this to her.

Quifilia. That was the world of the two kingdoms. Or, well, actually more like eight but that's not really the point here. There was a time once when everyone lived together in peace, without sides or differences dividing them. It is said that the gods formed Quifilia for the chosen people, a beautiful land where people could live happy and in peace with each other. And for centuries, even millennia, Quifilia wasn't ruled by anyone, everyone was equal and the world was at peace. That era is now only a legend.

It all ended when the war started. Long ago there was a war that severed Quifilia and the people living in it in half, forming the two sides that were now referred to as the light side and the dark side. People became angered with each other, soon the equality of all was gone and people were at war with each other. And that war nearly destroyed everyone. The gods were not happy of the destruction of their paradise and saw that people could not live without hierarchy. The war ended with no winners, Quifilia's former glory was gone.

After the war ended with mutual destruction, the two sides of Quifilia were formed. From the scattered survivors a few were chosen to be given a gift. The gift would make those individuals different from everyone else, but those people were to also be the ones that were to bring peace. But peace wasn't achieved to the point were Quifilia was a unified land once again. The hostility of the war remained and Quifilia settled into two parts, two sides of the world that were still not at peace with one another, even though the parts themselves had peace.

And for a long time there was peace amongst the light side of Quifilia. All of the four kingdoms were happy, helpful and most importantly at peace with each other. But after the war, the light and the dark had nothing to do with one another. Talking about the other side of the world was very forbidden, everyone liked to think that the other side didn't exist. Sakura didn't know much of the dark side, only what she'd been told, and from those small little things she came into the conclusion that it was a bad place that nobody wanted to talk about.

A while back the four kingdoms of the light side came together and started planning an attack on the dark side. The plan was to conquer it and turn Quifilia back into what it was once, restore it into it's former glory.

Yeah that didn't go as planned. The four kingdoms started fighting over petty little details and ended up ruining the peace they had. Then some sacred whatnot oracle announced to the rulers of the four kingdoms that the only way to restore peace on the light side was for every kingdom to send a princess, an heir to the throne, to another kingdom for marriage to act as a bond that would pull all the kingdoms together again.

"Bullshit I say.." Sakura muttered when sloutching towards her bedroom or 'slumber' as the maids liked to call it.

The history of Quifilia had always been interesting to the pink haired princess, but whenever she was faced with the inablity of the light side to work together, she wanted to vomit. Now the latest stunt that they were trying to pull off to achieve peace was exchange her life for it. Hell no, there was a lot she could handle but that she wasn't going to do.

When Sakura finally got to her bedroom after walking in circles around the castle, she slammed the dark wood door shut so hard that the loud noise echoed through out the empty corridors. Nobody in their sane mind would even consider entering her room now.

The pink haired princess collapsed on her soft bed filled with silky pillows. Sakura grabbed the nearest one and pushed her face against it, letting out the loudest scream she could. After screaming almost all the air out of her lungs, she could finally calmly breathe. She felt like crying, but she didn't want to, so she didn't. This wasn't something she was going to cry over and just blindly oblige to throwing her whole future away. Of course restoring the peace was the most important thing to do in her position, but why did it have to ruin her life. Why was is her that had to be sacrificed?

"UGH!" she growled and threw her tiara on the floor. Sakura turned to lay on her side, staring out of the large window she had in her room. Breathing in, sorting things out in her mind and breathing out.

The night had fallen to the southern kingdom but Sakura still wasn't asleep. Her wedding was only a fortnight away and she wouldn't eat or sleep until that horrible day. Maybe for her sake she'd die of exhaustion before that. She stared at the sparkling tiara on the floor with large green eyes. The tiara was beautiful, there was no doubt about it. It was a symbol of her high status as a princess, but at the same time it reminded her of the fact that she was to be sent away to marry someone she didn't know in the name of achieving peace.

She didn't even want to touch it so she sure as hell wouldn't pick it up from the floor. The tiara started loosing it's meaning in her eyes by the second.

That's when she heard a noise. "For fucks sake.." the princess growled. Who dare bother her at this hour, when she was at this state of mind?

Slowly her head was lifted from the pillows and she glared at her door. Who would be bothering her after midnight? But when she checked, nobody was at the door. A fleeting feeling of annoyance ran through her mind, bringing up the boiling anger inside her again. Was someone playing games with her?

But when she turned her head, a beautiful white dove was quietly sitting on her window sill. It was the bird who'd knocked on her window to gain her attention. The whole thing was bizarre, she rarely got anything from anyone - and when she did it sure wasn't delivered by birds. Sakura didn't recognize the dove, well it was an ordinary bird so who would, but she still opened her window. That's when she saw the flash of the symbol of the eastern kingdom on the bird's neck. There was only one person in the eastern kingdom she knew.

She carefully slipped off the note tied to the bird's neck. Once the paper was removed, the bird instantly flew away. Sakura was then left alone in silence. She watched the bird disappear into the darkness of the night and wouldn't open the tightly wrapped piece of paper before she lost the sight of it.

"Dear Sakura," Sakura read out loud, but quietly as if someone was listening. She clung to the words as if someone was there to take them way from her, tightly holding on to the small piece of paper in her hands.

"Meet me in the great forest at the border of the four tomorrow after the sun has gone down."

It was signed by _you know who_ and had a small hand-drawed picture of a cloud. A small smile rose to the princess' lips as she turned to look at the moon lighting up the darkened sky. She sure as hell knew who it was and she sure as hell would be there. There was no doubt about it. Nothing could stop her now.

She'd be there.

* * *

Phew, now that that's done, hello!

This is the first chapter of my adventure of a lifetime story that was, I know, a little ehh. Maybe it went a little too fast for my tasting and didn't have as much description as I would've liked but I had to just blurt the start of the story on one chapter or it wouldn't have really made sense in the second chapter. But hey, it only gets better from here.

❧ Goddess of glam


	2. Together again

Chapter two: Together again

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When the next day came, it was simple for Sakura. Sleep, eat, get pissed at everything, try to kill everything, eat more and go back up to your room. Her plan was simple, most of it came naturally due to her anger, but she still couldn't wait for the day to be over. She wanted the hours to go by quicker, but instead they seemed slower than ever. When she finally returned to her room after having dinner with her family, it was finally time to commence her plans. Soon the night fell. Sakura was surprised by seeing the darkening of the sky. Had the day already gone by?

Sakura's green eyes shone in the beautiful moonlight as she examined herself in front of a large mirror. Her usual princess-y kind of dresses had been tossed aside and she changed into a simple and dark outfit. Her slender figure would just melt into the darkness the forest would provide and Sakura was thankful of it. What she was about to do could be ruined by her being seen and she could not let that happen.

The pinkette changed into a simple black long sleeved shirt with a high neckline to cover as much of her fair skin as possible. With it she wore a pair leather leggings that almost looked black in the dark. It was hard to find boots that suited traveling through the forest from her closet, so she sneaked out a pair of knee-high leather boots from the stables earlier that day. For warmth and added cover, she managed to also grab a black hooded cape that was a part of the riding uniform of a palace guard when all the workers were out doing their duties.

Sakura looked at herself in the mirror but did not recognize herself. Her familiar features were hidden by the dark clothes and she was actually liking the kind of look she had on. It was a change from her normal attire that she was obligated to wear due to her status as a princess. But she didn't only look different, she felt like a different person. Sakura had never worn such clothes, but on the other hand princesses rarely borrow clothes that riders and soldiers wear. She might've not looked like herself, but for once she felt powerful, which was a feeling she hadn't felt in a long time.

Sakura gently graced the back of her neck with the tips of her fingers, pulling the neckline of her shirt down a bit to expose the tattoo-like birthmark that decorated her pale skin. Emerald green eyes watched as she traced the obscure shape of with her index finger. It was an outline of a flower she didn't recognize, but for some reason she always felt connected with it even though she didn't know what it was or what it meant. Suddenly Sakura winced and drew her hand away from the birthmark, which then disappeared under the dark shirt. Before she saw the mark she wore on herself as something beautiful but now it had a different meaning.

All the royals in Quifilia are born with a birthmark. They are all different but they have a meaning. It is a mark of royality and power which they all possess and hold inside of them. It has always protected the royal families from being dethroned since only people with power have ever managed to rule. That said, if one possesses the royal mark, they are part of a royal bloodline and can rule. It was one of the few things Sakura actually liked about being a princess, the fact that she carried a mark that had a meaning for her, but she couldn't look at herself anymore the same way she used to.

 _'I can't live being angry at myself, being ashamed of my status and what it means',_ _Sakura reminded herself as she dug her nails into the side of her right thigh._

Sakura placed the large hood on, covering her most distinctive _pink_ feature under it so that only her piercing emerald eyes shone from under it. She took one last look at herself, but then she knew she had to leave. There was no time to wait anymore if she wanted to make it in time to where she was headed. With her escape route already planned there was no hesitation in her mind. She was doing this.

With one swift move she pushed her large windows open and climbed onto the wooden windowpane that lined the outside of her window. She looked down at the 30-meter fall she was about to face, focusing on not falling down and trying to find somewhere to hold on to. She needed a way down, but she couldn't exactly just walk out of the front door, so the window was the next logical solution. She'd read hundreds of books where people climbed out of their windows, it seemed like a popular yet unconventional and unexpected way to flee. But her escape was going to be different from all those that she'd read in books. Sakura placed her hands onto the weak vines the climbed up the side of the tall castle tower, trying to concentrate as best as she could not to loose her footing now that she had barely any support keeping her from falling.

The pink haired princess closed her eyes as she concentrated her mind and felt a small fire light inside of her. It was a flame she'd been afraid of awakening for a long time, but this was a start of a new era for her. It felt like something inside of her was waking up from a deep slumber, slowly building up energy to her center. Then she pushed all the power she'd collected inside of her core into her hands and commanded the plant, releasing her powers free.

 _"Grow!"_

Immediately the plant started growing higher and stronger. It started to climb higher, grow thicker and kept going until Sakura felt it was ready. For a second Sakura thought she'd gone overboard since she hadn't used her powers in a long time, but the vines were growing exactly like she wanted them to. It didn't take long until the vines were strong and big enough that the princess could grab a hold and start climbing down the side of the castle unnoticed. Soon running away from the top floor of a castle tower was child's play.

Sakura was never afraid of heights which came in handy. She was a fast climber and managed to get down without making any sound at all. She dropped down the last few meters and proceeded to make a run for the cover of the forest, where no guards could see her even if they were looking. There she'd continue traveling until she reached her destination and the person she was meeting.

* * *

Traveling in the dark wasn't as easy as Sakura had thought. Not only did the princess not see anything in the dark, but the terrain was extremely difficult for someone who had never even been to the forest before. It seemed like a forever, but Sakura just kept pushing forwards. She knew she had to keep going on. Even though she was already exhausted she continued with the strength of her willpower. If Sakura would be discovered and taken back to the castle, she could be perceived as a traitor and the consequences she would face would most likely be worse than what she was faced with already.

Sakura didn't exactly know how long she'd been traveling, but by looking at the position of the moon now and comparing it to what it was when she left, she estimated that it had been a few hours. Going through the forest was the quickest way to get to the border of the four kingdoms but even that way she had a lot more to go. The moon was almost at it's high point and Sakura knew she had to hurry if she was going to make it in time.

But then Sakura heard voices amongst the rustling leaves under her feet. She quickly came to a stop and started to listen, but she didn't hear anything but the wind blowing in the forest. For a while she stood still trying to locate the whisper-like voices she'd heard, but after a while she gave up and continued on. It didn't take long till she heard the voices again. This time they were stronger and louder, but still silent to Sakura's ears.

This time she proceeded head on and started running towards the voices, trying to make sense of them. Even though she didn't know where it was she seemed to now where to go, as if the ground itself was telling her where to go, when to dodge a tree and watch out for roots on the ground. The moonlight provided her random glimpses of light when it shone through the tree branches, which the pink haired girl was very grateful of.

It seemed like the trees started to spread out and weren't so tightly concentrated in a small area. Sakura started to slow down when her eyes were met with an opening where there were no trees at all. The ground was covered with grass and flowers instead of moss and tree roots like in the forest. When stepping out into the open from the security the trees had provided her, she was met with the source of the voices. Well, more like _sources_.

 _"Sakura!"_

 _"You made it!"_

The princess felt a rush of happiness take over her body as she saw the three cloaked figures. Sakura felt like kicking herself for not recognizing the voices of the familiars figures. The momentum from Sakura crashing into the three girls almost knocked them all down onto the ground but some how they all managed to stay on their feet and were now hugging the life out of each other. Sakura almost felt like crying out of joy. She felt such relief. She actually made it, she actually succeeded in the first stage of taking her life in her own hands.

Oddly Ino, Tenten and Hinata were Sakura's dearest friends. The princess didn't have many friends since she wasn't really allowed to have any contact with people her age that weren't noble by blood. There were no people her age working in the castle either so the only people she'd ever connected with were the people who lived as far as in other kingdoms. Their friendship was probably odd, but the fact that they lived far apart was overcome by the royal blood they all had in common. The only people Sakura could ever relate to were the three princesses of the easter, northern and western kingdoms. They spent more time together when they were little, when the dimplomatic relations between the four kingdoms were still fine. Now they didn't see each other much often. They wrote to each other and sent letters by carrier birds, but other than that they hadn't been in contact with each other for almost over a year now. Now Sakura saw that the time apart hadn't hurt their friendship at all.

Sakura had to take a few deep breaths to calm herself down from all the excitement and exhaustion that she was going through. "I'm so happy to see you guys."

"So you got my message." The blonde princess smiled and Sakura couldn't help but feel her lips also curve into a smile. Wow, it had been a while when she'd felt this happy. It was like a weight was lifted off her chest.

"Your doves always were the best to find their way, Ino." Sakura giggled. "But Hinata and Tenten, you managed to get here as well!"

"Like I would comply to the crazy words of some whatnot oracle." The brown haired princess named Tenten snickered. She was always the most rebellious of the four, there was no way she wasn't upset about being forced into a marriage and her freedom being exchanged for shaky peace. The free fiery spirit probably jumped out of a window and ran the minute she heard of the whole thing.

Then Sakura turned to her friend Hinata. Her family was very protective and strict. Even Sakura was somewhat afraid of her father, so it probably took a miracle for Hinata to manage to leave. "I'm so glad you made it out okay."

But her friend responded with a sneaky smirk and a wink. "Oh Sakura, you'd be surprised by my talents of sneaking around."

The pink haired princess would've most likely continued the conversation with Hinata, but Tenten cut the chatter short. "We should leave. There's only a couple of hours before sun rises in the eastern kingdom, so if we want to get as far away as possible before our absences are noticed, we should leave now. We have a long journey ahead of us."

And so the girls left the rendezvous point together, feeling safer together. Sure, they had a lot of traveling to do, but them being together made it easier. What none of them knew was that they'd encounter some unexpected turns of events that would change their plans completely.

* * *

Hello again! So here was the second chapter to adventure of a lifetime and I hope you liked it! Probably didn't see the supernatural powers coming, huh? Well, surprise! Please leave reviews so I know how you feel about the story so far and stay tuned for the next chapter. I think it's gonna be up pretty soon, depending on when I get time to finish and post it.


	3. Get them

Chapter three: Get them

* * *

The sun hit Quifilia quite early since the spring was slowly turning to summer. Slowly flowers started to open up their petals when the first rays of sunlight hit the ground, warming it's surface after the chilly night. Morning dew left the thick forest slightly damp and misty when it started to vaporize from the temperature slowly rising. The forest was quite beautiful in the morning. The vibrant colours were emphasized by the slightly orange-toned morning sun and the little morning dew that was left glistened beautifully in the sunlight.

After traveling the whole night on foot, never stopping for a drink or to take a breath, the girls were exhausted and had to rest. Determination was what kept them going the whole night. They barely even thought about avoiding wild animals or seeking a water source. The only thing that mattered was finding a way to get out of the reach of their kingdoms.

They were lucky enough to find a nice small cave where they could rest for a while and still stay hidden. It was risky, but Tenten decided to light a small fire to keep them warm in the cold and slightly damp cave. After that it didn't take long for all of the four princesses to fall asleep. Exhaustion really took it's toll on the girls and it showed.

The girls managed to get a few hours of sleep before the morning came. They were all curled up together with their cloaks as blankets for that little extra warmth and comfort. They were royals after all and most certainly not used to the conditions they were currently in.

Hinata was the first one to wake up. She had always been the only morning person in the group and there were no exceptions made even when they were on the run. She stretched her whole body, noticing a few sore spots that most likely resulted from all the walking and sleeping on the hard cave floor. But now it was the morning and they had to move, there was no time to fuss about sore muscles and stiff shoulders. The blue haired princess then proceeded to carefully wake up the others and they prepared themselves for another day of traveling. Their journey seemed endless. They didn't really even know where to go, and the hopes of actually being able to make it somewhere where they could all safely live were pretty low. None of them knew if there even was anything outside of Quifilia, but they would sure go and find out if that was the only option they had.

"We're not far from the border to the dark side." Hinata suddenly whispered after maybe an hour of moving. The princesses exchanged looks. Hinata was right, the forest was starting to get darker and the amount of walking they had done would put them somewhere near the border. This resulted in all the girls tensing up. All of them had very little knowledge of the dark side and what they had heard wasn't good.

They couldn't exactly just stop there, but nobody really wanted to get closer to the border.

Ino crossed her arms over her chest and turned to face her friends. She was clearly getting nervous, just like the others. "Sooo, what do we do?"

The girls hadn't really thought about crossing over to the dark side, but now that they were in the situation where they had to think about it, they couldn't exactly avoid it. Surely they could try and get to the end of Quifilia without crossing over, but traveling on the light side now that they were on the run was just as dangerous as anything they would face on the other side. The only distinctive difference between the two options they had was that they didn't really know what was on the other side. Not that it made them worry any less.

"We have to go to the other side." Tenten quietly said after a moment of tense silence. "Since we don't know anything about the dark side, the people living there most likely know nothing about us either. Of course we have to avoid being seen since we don't know if anyone will recognize us."

The other girls agreed with Tenten's reasoning. They didn't really have any other choice since they couldn't risk being seen. Walking along the border wouldn't do either since someone would eventually notice that they were gone and there would be hundreds of soldiers scouring through the woods looking for them. Their disappearance would most likely cause a hassle on the light side, but if they made a small short cut through the dark side forest, they would be long gone before the first soldiers made it to the border.

And so they proceeded across the border and entered the dark side. They didn't want to go far deep in the enemy grounds, but they also had to stay pretty far from the border of the light and the dark side just in case someone was there. Sakura used her powers to cover up any markings they left behind in the nature when passing through and Ino covered their scent by causing a small breeze to scramble all the scents in their vicinity. That way there was not a single piece of evidence that they ever even crossed the border. It finally seemed like they could breathe, but the thought of being on the dark side still intimidated them.

* * *

Suddenly the calmness of the forest seemed to die down and the girls could feel the change in energy. It was like the whole forest was curling inwards. The birds in the trees stopped their chirping, the calming breeze flowing through the woods died down, and even though the difference was very subtle, the girls knew something was going on.

Tenten had taken over the role of the leader of the pack, if you could call it that. She basically just walked a few steps ahead of the others, made sure the coast was clear and lead them to the right direction, since her sense of direction was the best. Well, depends how you define _having_ a sense of direction, because the other girls had none. Zilch. Nada.

Not too far away from the border and the girls' location galloped four large dark horses that didn't seem like they were going to stop for anything. Their speed was unreal and in some ways even captivating. There were times when they looked to be flying through the woods rather than running and jumping over fallen tree trunks.

The occasional yells of the riders of these horses echoed in the forest, and the pounding of the hooves could be heard from a far. The wildlife of the forest steered clear of these four dark figures, which was probably the smartest thing to do.

Tenten silently stopped the small group with a hand signal when she heard the pounding get closer. Everyone's senses suddenly spiked and they were all on the look out for movement. It didn't take verbal communication for the four girls to know what was going on and what they needed to do. They were all risking their lives just being there and they all knew what was at stake. They couldn't be seen, and avoiding everyone and everything was something that they not only needed but had to do.

Soon Sakura saw a flash of dark in the corner of her eye. Her emerald green eyes widened in shock as the figures started to look like they were getting closer to them. After letting out an alarmed hiss, she immediately grabbed the nearest person to her and pulled her to the ground, covering the mouth of the certain blonde who was prone to screaming when startled. Tenten did the same to Hinata, but she was very aware of what was going on and had no intentions to make a sound. They weren't exactly out of sight in their current location, which was only shielded by a small bush and a few medium sized rocks. If anyone got close enough, they could be spotted. The girls could only hope that the horses with their riders would just pass by them and leave them far behind.

Well, today was not a lucky day for anyone who was a fugitive princess on the run and currently hiding in enemy territory.

"We'll hide here until they pass." Tenten faintly whispered, trying to make as little sound as possible.

When the horses one by one reached a small pond, they stopped to drink and the figures dismounted their methods of transportation. This wasn't very far away from the girls, which was obviously very unsettling, but by the looks of things nobody noticed their presence. But this didn't make anyone's unease go away. They wouldn't be able to move from their hiding place until the riders left, but at least they had a good view to see what the hell they were doing out here in the middle of the forest.

 _"Now didn't I say I'd beat all of you in a race?"_

The arrogant tone of the rider that reached the pond first seemed to be annoying the one that was just a second or two behind him. His smile was just as cocky as the tone of his voice, and it was really pissing off the other guy.

"Shut up, Naruto. You won because of your unfair head start." The other rider grunted and proceeded to smack the back of the blonde's head. "I would've beat you otherwise."

The pinkette carefully examined the two figures. The one referred to as 'Naruto' had spiky blonde hair and bright blue eyes. He was medium height and build, almost exactly like his dark haired companion. Sakura noted the weird marks on his face that resembled whiskers, but found the image of humans having whiskers really odd so she chose to ignore that detail. His presence was very cheerful unlike the dark haired one's, but he was clearly annoyed so that was easily explained. Sakura's eyes went almost straight to the weird shape his hair was styled in. If she could've laughed, she would've.

 _'Who the hell wears their head like the butt of a chicken?' Sakura was laughing in her mind, trying really hard not to actually snort or laugh._

"You're such a sore loser, Teme!"

"And you're such an idiot."

"Oh so we're playing that game now, huh? Well, fine! I can be just as grumpy and rude as you-"

But two horses now arriving to the pond seemed to stop the agitated yelling of the one called 'Naruto'. Sakura was obviously very unsettled by their current situation, but being as curious as she was, she was very grateful of being able to hear what they were discussing.

"Naruto calm down." The newly arrived riders said in unison. Sakura noted the tiredness in their voices and watched as they also let their horses to go and have a drink from the pond.

One of the newly arrived riders laid down onto his back with his hands behind his neck and sighed. "Troublesome. The horses are obviously tired and need a break. You were the one who wanted this childish 'who's first' race in the first place so at least try not to be so annoying."

 _'Great. Guess we're stuck here until they're done with their break.' The pinkette thought to herself._

"You gotta admit, that one with the pinapple-ish hair is kinda cute." Ino half-whispered, but she didn't expect the response to be angry hisses and hushes. It was true that her immediate attention got caught up in the drama that they were watching, but the intense glares her friends were giving her indicated that commenting was a no-no.

Sakura felt her breath hitch when one of the rider turned his head towards them. She felt her heart almost stop the moment the pearlescent orbs brushed over the bush that they were hiding behind. It was almost like he looked her straight in the eye, but after a few seconds of intense staring he seemed to shrug it off and turn his attention back to the blonde who was seemingly agitated.

Finally she could breathe again.

Naruto was clearly not happy with them trying to quiet him down. Sakura could clearly see the glare the blonde was directing towards the black haired rider whom he'd referred to as 'Teme'. Initially she'd thought they were some kind of rivals, but now she was all confused by the situation and the interaction of the two. Who were these people anyway and what were they doing here?

Naruto started pointing his index finger at the silent but clearly annoyed dark haired boy. "What? He started it!"

"Well at least _I_ didn't let that bird get away after calling _myself_ the greatest archer in the whole wide world." Naruto's piercing blue eyes widened and a slight red of anger and/or embarrassment was visible on the tops of his cheekbones.

Now it was the black haired one's turn to be tiredly told off. "Sasuke, give it a break."

It was visible to everyone, including the girls, that these attempts of calming the two down weren't going to work. The blonde boy huffed and crossed his arms over his chest, ignoring the tired attempts made by his companions. "Like you could do any better."

Sakura watched as the one called Sasuke curved his lips into a mischievous grin. Within a heartbeat he was gone and alarm bells started going off in Sakura's head. Her emerald orbs jumped around trying to locate the now missing figure. Judging by her friends alarmed faces, they were also very surprised by the sudden disappearance of one of the riders.

Then suddenly their all attention was drawn to the small bird that landed with a thump to the feet of the now surprised blonde. Naruto alternately stared at the small dagger that was thrown at the bird with ultimate precision and his friend, who reappeared a few meters away. Sakura and all his friends were panicking by the sudden closeness of the rider, who wasn't that far away and could possibly detect them if he paid enough attention.

 _'How is he so fast?' The pinkette wondered and closely watched the dark haired figure._

The blonde was at loss of words. He just lost in the competition of who is better and it showed on his face.

Sakura had almost forgotten the presence of the boy Ino called cute until he suddenly spoke out after seemingly taking a nap. "Wow Sasuke, you just had to show off."

It was clear that Sasuke here enjoyed the moment. It might've been because he 'won' a competition or that he just liked proving his blonde companion wrong. Or maybe it was a combination of the two. Sakura wasn't sure, but she was relieved to see him walking back towards his friends and further away from her and her friends.

Sasuke brushed his fingers through his spiky dark hair. "We should go. This break has lasted long enough and we have a long way back."

The newly made suggestion of leaving caused the riders to walk back to their horses.

"Let's see if we see that same heard of deer on the way back. We haven't had one for dinner in ages." The one with pearlescent eyes commented as he caringly patted the side of his dark horse before preparing to leave.

Naruto was still annoyed with Sasuke's unneeded showing off. He decided to thrust all his remaining frustration into a small rock that he forcefully kicked and then turned to head for his horse that was waiting for him.

 _"Ow!"_

Well that was something Naruto didn't expect to hear. Neither did his friends by the looks of their confused faces.

Sasuke raised a brow. "Naruto?"

The flustered blonde shook his head. "No way, wasn't me."

"A moose?" The one with the pineapple shaped head suggested, but Sasuke quickly refuted it.

"No, if it was a moose we would've seen it."

Tenten had her hand over Ino's mouth whose forehead had made direct contact with the flying rock. For a second there the girls still had hope. There was a chance that the riders would just ignore Ino's yell and discard it as a weird noise of a bird or something.

 _'This was such a mistake..' Sakura cursed in her mind._

But when the figures started to slowly step by step get closer to them, Sakura knew they were doomed. They'd already lost the game of hide and seek so they didn't really need to stay hidden anymore.

Naruto's eyes widened. "They're-"

"New plan: RUN!"

Tenten's sudden scream interrupted Naruto and took all the boys by surprise as they watched the four female figures dash away and run as fast as they could. It took the four boys a few seconds to process what just had happened in front of their eyes.

"Definitely not a moose." Naruto commented and managed to get smacked by Sasuke once again.

The figures of the running girls were getting further and further away, but nobody really knew what to do. They all looked at each other in confusion and tried to make sense of the situation. Soon it became evident that not everything was as normal as it might've seemed. There was something weird going on. Not only was it odd for the girls to run, but they shouldn't have been in that part of the forest anyways.

"They shouldn't have been here. Everyone knows th-" Sasuke's pondering suddenly stopped and he turned to the direction where the girls had run off to. His whole body tensed and his face went from confused to serious. There was something weird going on and they were going to stop it and find out what's going on.

"Get them."

* * *

Stay tuned for the next chapter because I have a feeling it's gonna be an intense one (please don't quote me on that later on). If you've enjoyed the story so far please leave reviews cause I'd love to know your thoughts on the story itself and they give me so much inspiration to write more!

* * *

❧ Goddess of glam


	4. Run while you still can

Chapter four: Run while you still can

* * *

Hinata was basically at her limit in every way possible. She was physically exhausted, and the mental breakdown she was having _while_ running away from the people who were most likely going to kill her wasn't exactly ideal either. She'd been running for hours on end and the sad few hours of sleep she'd gotten didn't really help when faced with everything that was going on.

Her lungs were burning, her body was aching and her feet were so blistered that she was afraid to even look at what was hidden inside her boots. She felt like she couldn't breathe, but she still kept going. Even with her body being pushed to it's absolute limit, it didn't help that the stress she was under was making her feel like she could have a heart attack at any given moment. Her body was filled with adrenaline, which was the only thing keeping her from completely passing out.

The blue-haired princess was in an obscure way actually quite amazed with herself and how far she'd gotten with her friends and even on her own. For her, it was a big thing. The fact that she was able to push herself beyond all these limits she thought she had just with her own willpower was mindblowing. She really embraced the fact that her boundaries only existed in her imagination. But now wasn't the time for Hinata to praise herself for a job well-done. She was basically running away from imminent death and knew that she was most likely going to die any second now.

Being killed by dark siders while trespassing on their lands because she was a fugitive from her own kingdom was never really the way she thought she'd die. Wow, what a situation had she gotten herself into.

Hinata wanted to slap herself so bad, but this wasn't the place or the time to beat herself up for decisions that were made in a group. Of course she could regret ever leaving her kingdom to join this group of runaway princesses, but when she thought about it she didn't regret her decision to leave one bit. Thinking clearly with this much adrenaline running through her body was nearly impossible, but getting out was the best thing for her. Even when faced with the possibility of dying.

Well at least she'd die trying.

The black cloak she had on flowed behind her as she ran. It was a difficult length for her and caused her to constantly fumble and trip on the damn thing. It didn't take long for her to get enough of the stupid garment. While running for your life you really don't have time to fall flat on your face with every other step you take. With a grunt of annoyance she swiftly untied the knot and felt the heavy weight of the fabric lift off of shoulders. In the corner of her eye she saw the black material fall to the ground, but honestly she was slightly jealous of the inanimate object. When she frantically continued to run in a random direction with her lungs burning, her feet aching and scared for her goddamn life, the cloak she'd thrown away just gracefully floated onto the ground.

Hinata heard her heart banging inside her head and she had a hard time breathing while running. She knew that she wanted to stop and that her running away wasn't exactly a solution to the situation she was in, but stopping wasn't an option anymore. She didn't see any of her friends around her, and they were now all running in a different direction than her, probably far away from where she was. She was alone in this. For the first time in her life she was _actually_ alone with nobody there to help her.

There wasn't a lot of sunlight coming through the thick tree branches, but Hinata was able to deduct that it was about midday. She could feel the scarce sun rays coming from right above her, but she was too scared to look up. She just wanted to run and not turn her head, because otherwise it would mean that she'd lose sight of where she was going. Despite of her not wanting to move her gaze anywhere, there was curiosity bubbling in Hinata's stomach that was urging her to see if anyone was even following her.

Suddenly the princess could feel something inside of her. If was like a tingle somewhere very deep inside that was slowly taking over her whole body. It started out very subtle, but slowly it started to feel like she was connecting with the deepest and most hidden part of herself that she didn't know even existed. And then it happened.

Hinata felt a pulsation run through her and she felt something click inside of her. With the next blink she could see everything around her, full 360 degrees. Her body was going on full defensive mode and Hinata didn't even realize it. Honestly she didn't even know how to do it, but surprisingly she didn't feel scared at all. Hinata didn't mind her body being autopiloted at all while her emotions were taking the best of her and clouding her concentration.

Figuring out how her heightened awareness of her surroundings worked wasn't a fast process, but it did seem to come naturally for her. When she focused enough she could see it all come together as a single and clear picture in her mind. And that's when she saw it. Something getting closer and closer to her in an insanely fast velocity. She immediately saw and knew that there was no going back if it reached her. There was no way she was getting out of this just by running with her own little two feet, she could never outrun whatever was soon going to be reaching her.

"I can't do it.." Hinata whispered to herself.

She could see it coming closer. She felt it's presence near her.

And with that she felt another tingling pulse run through her body and energy pulsed out her body. It didn't hurt, it was almost a pleasure like sensation filling her. She felt everything from the bottom of her feet to the crown of her head to the tips of her fingers just aligning and flowing together in harmony, vibrating in a strangely familiar way. With all this newfound energy running through her veins, in that moment Hinata felt invincible. Like she had all the power in the world inside of her slender little body.

But then she freaked out when she felt something suddenly grab her wrist. And like that, all of the floodgates burst open. Hinata wasn't exactly sure if she was screaming and crying out of pain or exctasy, but the feeling of all the built up power leaving her closed off body was overwhelming her. Soon enough she came down from her high, not really knowing what had happened just moments before. It was all a blur. And then she saw _him_ on the ground, trying to get back on his feet, soaking wet.

"Oh crap."

"WHAT THE FUCK?!"

Hinata couldn't run. She couldn't move. She could hardly breathe when watching the blonde rider from before yell at her. The only way possible to describe her being was frozen. One touch and she could break -kind of frozen. She was exhausted, it was like all power was drained out of her slender body. With wide eyes she just stared at him. She just couldn't get herself to move away.

"HOW DID YOU DO THAT?! WAS THAT YOU!?" He screamed more, his face reddened and hands vigorously pointing at her. Now, if there was something to be known about her, Hinata wasn't someone who liked confrontation. Not that it was in any way relevant to the situation, she just didn't think there was any need to scream at her. The situation was just making her uncomfortable in so many weird ways that she didn't even want to think about it.

What came to answering his question, if that even was a question, she didn't want to. She wasn't obligated to, not that she could get even a single word out of her mouth. And even if she could've answered, it was better to not speak at all at this point. If she was in her sane mind and NOT a fugitive, she could've somehow wiggled her way out of this with speaking, but the situation she was in was waay past that option.

So she did the one thing she could and should've done way sooner - she ran. She just ran as fast as she could in a random direction, not really thinking much about it. It was a desperate action from a desperate girl and she knew it, but maybe this was the one time that it actually worked. And maybe it could have if it wasn't for the fact that she was exhausted and didn't really have anywhere to run since she was being cornered by a large rock formation in one direction and a steep uphill in another.

And then _it_ hit her.

The blue-haired princess felt herself being knocked over and fell down to the ground with a loud thump. Hinata let out an uncontrollable squeal when she felt the huge weight falling right on top her, pinning her hard against the cold ground. The slightly wet moss, stones and tree roots that she was being pushed against weren't exactly making the experience more pleasurable. She heard ringing in her ears, there was no way she wouldn't be bruised after all this.

"Get off me." Hinata grunted. She knew exactly _who_ was responsible for knocking her to the ground and she was not happy about it. But before she could even register what happened she was pulled to her feet and pushed against a treetrunk. _He_ was pinning her wrists right next to her head, towering over her and he wasn't being too careful with his actions either. But before Hinata managed to get a word of objection out of her mouth, she realized that she could finally see his face up close.

His spiky blonde hair was now drenched and droplets of water were still falling down from it to his face, but Hinata felt herself mesmerized by this stranger. She carefully watched his perfect complexion and noted the small whisker-like markings on the sides of his face. She noted the smallest detail, but lastly found herself lost in his striking caribbean blue eyes. She didn't realize that time was actually going by, but the blonde boy sure noticed that she wasn't exactly focusing.

His grip on her wrists loosened. "Uh, hello?"

He was clearly very confused, his eyes softening and his movements beginning to loosen up. Why was he completely drenched from head to toe? Was it her fault? Who was this girl? Who were her friends? Why were they hiding and running away? There were a lot of questions that he wanted answers to, but the girl she wanted them from was completely out of it.

"Are you feeling alright?" Naruto carefully tried to connect with the girl. He was in total confusion and she was completely out of it. Why was he wet? Who was this girl? He then proceeded to let go of her wrist, which then instantly dropped down next to her side. Naruto then brushed a few locks of hair out of the way of the pearlish eyes of the girl and waved his hand in front of them, seeing if it had any effect on her.

Hinata watched his lips, his face. Everything seemed so far away for just a moment. She watched him just be. His lips were slightly open, words coming out of his mouth. His eyes were worried, she could tell. She could in a way feel his aura change from hostile to something more calm, more concerned. And then his words finally reached her, registering into her mind.

And that snapped Hinata back to reality. It was like she had been in flowing on top of clouds in dreamland and missed everything that had really happened in the _real_ world. Everything had been so far away and now it was just _there._ Suddenly there was a face in front of her and she did the only thing humanly possible.

She punched him.

The hardest she ever could.

Hinata didn't stick around to see the guy stumble back. She was still pretty freaked out by what had just happened and what was presently happening to her. But now she was slightly smarter than before and had enough time to make her grand escape, so she took off running to a completely different direction hoping that this time she could just hide, disappear and never be found.

* * *

Tenten didn't run far, she was smarter than that. She was tactical and intelligent, she was raised that way, so she knew that running forever wasn't an option. If the options were to run or hide, she would proceed straight to the second option. She would not get caught that easily. So the brunette concocted a plan. She would hide and ambush anyone that would come after her or her friends. She would make it out of this forest alive, that she was absolutely sure of. If all four of them would was what she was afraid to think about.

The brunette reached into a small leather case she'd carried around and felt the cool metal against her fingertips. Tenten's lips curved into a small smile. They were still there, she hadn't lost them. She was known for never leaving anywhere ever without at least one of her precious blades. She was definitely a force to be reckoned with, even without the magical powers she was supposed to have.

Tenten started browsing the surrounding terrain and found the perfect hiding place, a tree. A very tall fir to be exact, which she chose because they were usually thick and had branches all the way to the ground. That made them easily accessible and good places to hide overall.

Swiftly she started climbing from the ground up. With every branch she got higher. She could feel twigs and the needles of the tree grasping onto her clothes and getting stuck to her trademark two buns. But the princess didn't stop or care fr that matter. Her goal was to get as high as she could, so that way at at least she couldn't be ambushed. She had the higher ground, which was a tactical advantage that she wanted to have over anyone that would come for her.

Branch after branch she climbed higher and higher. Tenten started to feel that now was not the best time to be thinking about slipping or falling down. But despite starting to feel like she was getting pretty high, she felt confident. And even though she had nerves of steel, she couldn't help but worry that her friends were okay.

"Oh Sakura, where have we gotten ourselves int-" The brunette couldn't finish her reassuring mumbling after what felt like the earth's gravity just pulling her back. At least harder than normally. She felt her grip loosening and her body falling down uncontrollably. But Tenten pulled her knees to her chest and - somehow - managed to land smoothly on her feet, as if she was imitating a cat. She had feet wide and arms up, fists slowly clenching. There was something wrong with the situation. Tenten knew she wouldn't fall down just like that.

'I have a bad feeling about this. ' Tenten thought to herself as she continued to breathe in through the nose and out through the mouth.

And she was right.

Out of nowhere she saw a something in the corner of her eye coming from the side and it was coming fast. With a quick reaction, she managed to dodge it, but it came close. Tenten could feel the strength of that single blow in her whole body and it was giving her goosebumps. If one of those hit her in a critical spot, it could be over.

So she wouldn't let her enemies even touch her.

Suddenly there were blows coming from several directions all around her. Tenten just kept dodging and blocking the attacks. She never actually managed to catch a glimpse from her opponents, but it was like she was getting attacked by multiple people from all around her but still not at the same time. She knew that there was no giving up so she just continued on dodging and blocking the attacks - thank god she had martial arts training.

Tenten really had to tug at something deep inside of her and draw power from within herself, which would usually take immense concentration, but was especially difficult while under attack. She closed her eyes. She felt the air move around her and she started to see it unravel in her mind. It was like she could see everything, she saw a pattern. And before she even realized, she could feel where the attacks were coming from before they even happened. Suddenly she concentrated all her strength and grabbed something out of thin air. She opened her eyes and looked at what she had in her grip, which oddly seemed to resemble... _an arm?_

The princess stared at the body part in total confusion. Well, sure, it was attached to a body, but Tenten seemed to only realize it now. She turned her gaze into the translucent eyes of her attacker, one of the riders she'd seen before. He tried to pull away, but her grip only tightened. Her eyes were now filled with wrath and she felt a fire start deep within her. She felt power pulsing through her veins and she pushed that power into the hand that was gripping the rider's arm. The rider twitched and grunted in agony, which left Tenten confused. She didn't do anything, she was just angry and wouldn't let him go. But as the rider's face twitched in pain, Tenten decided to finally end it and punched him so hard that he fell back. Tenten's victory glory took a turn as she saw the hand shaped nasty looking burn she'd left on the man's arm. It wasn't looking good.

Tenten, confused and very scared of what had just happened, took a few steps back. She could feel her heart rate spiking, the pit in her stomach deepening. All of the hairs on her body bounced up and she was honestly scared. It took her all of her willpower not to flip out right then and there. She didn't have powers. What was happening to her was the impossible.

"Well, this can't be good." She was surprised at how nonchalant her voice sounded, but didn't exactly have time to think since the brown haired rider was back up on his feet and swung his fist at her, sinking it into her abdomen. Tenten felt herself pushed back and she managed to stay on her feet, but for multiple seconds it felt like she had no air in her lungs, like she couldn't breathe. And when she finally did, she felt a piercing pain and the punches continued. She didn't have time to block the attacks so she just had to take them, protecting her vital spots so she wouldn't die just there and then. Tenten wasn't prepared or in good condition to fight as she could barely hold air inside of her, and there was a limited amount of punches she could take. So there needed to be a change in the plan.

New tactic. Run.

And the princess sure did. She took off and started running as fast as she could, not really sure how it would work out with not really being able to breathe and having someone just beat the living shit out of you. But she felt like this was a risk she needed to take.

From far away she could see the familiar face of a blue-haired princess getting closer, her hair dancing in the air and pale face all red from running.

"Hinata get back!" Tenten screamed in absolute horror at the top of her lungs and motioned her to turn back. Tenten had to hold onto her stomach and support her left shoulder as she ran. She could feel her speed slowing down and tasted the familiar salty liquid on her tongue. She would be fine, she knew it. But she would need to get away first.

Only then did she feel her body being pushed down and crushed to the ground.

* * *

Hey! I decided to divide this into two chapters since it would've been a really long one. I'll post the other half soon though c:

Let me know about your opinions, since they are kinda supernatural. Any ideas or recommendations? Constructive criticism is always welcome

❧ Goddess of Glam


	5. Let's take them

Chapter five: Let's take them

* * *

It had been one hell of a day.

Ino was absolutely horrified. Her heart was beating faster than it had ever before, she had trouble breathing and she felt like she could pass out at any moment. She was most likely having a panic attack, but she couldn't stop. She had terror written all over her face and she was starting to feel numb in the lower parts of her body. She was absolutely sure that if she were to stay in one place, she would be found dead in that same spot. It was like she was a living character in the worst horror story she'd ever heard.

The blonde princess could barely hold her eyes open as she didn't want to even watch where she was going. Her mind was battling with her body about keeping her eyes open. But she really couldn't help herself. It was almost like every time she chose to change direction and turned around, she saw someone there. But when she looked really hard, there was nobody actually there. It was the creepiest she'd ever felt, her mind was playing tricks on her and she on the brink of bursting out to tears. Paranoia had her almost shaking, it was a miracle she remembered to breathe every now and then. She had a feeling that she was being watched and that is never a good feeling to have.

This lead to her just dashing in random directions, constantly changing where she was going and if it wasn't under the circumstances - it would've looked pretty funny.

"JESUS CHRIST WHY DOES LIFE HAVE TO BE SO DAMN HARD?!" Ino let out a frustrated scream, as if all the emotions she'd been keeping inside since their journey began just united into one loud and clear sentence. She could feel tears welling up in her eyes and making her vision blurry, but she didn't even bother wiping them away. She just let them fall down her ivory cheeks. She honestly couldn't keep her emotions stored up inside her, so she just let it all out in a very unladylike manner, unfit for a princess.

She cursed the shit out of everything.

Really loudly.

And she was not holding back.

Ino wanted to scream, shout, yell, cry, punch the living shit out of something, run, hide, then beat up something again out of pure anger and finally just die. Well, maybe not the last part. Everything else yes, but dying couldn't have have been what she wanted since she was currently trying really hard to avoid it.

Except cursing and screaming did not help her stay alive what so ever.

Her voice echoed through the forest. If she were to stop running and yelling for a second, it would've probably been dead silent apart from the sound of her own ragged breathing. It started to seem like a good idea to Ino. She knew that there was absolutely no point in running, but it prolonged the feeling of being alive, so she thought that it was worth it. At least she'd die knowing that she tried her hardest until the very last moment.

Ino's feet were really starting to hurt. She was the only one with proper shoes for the terrain, which had helped her a little bit. She didn't have blisters or anything like that, but her legs were starting to get tired and her whole lower body was starting to ache terribly. But still, she kept running forward. Well, her life was on the line here so who could blame a girl for trying.

All the adrenaline coursing through her veins was blurring her thought process, so all that she was able to process in her mind was along the lines of 'death, run, hurt, eek and why did I skip those bloody jogs around the courtyard'.

The sound of a horse's hooves pounding against the ground snapped Ino back into reality. She couldn't accurately pinpoint the actual direction the sounds were coming from, but she could clearly tell that they were getting closer. The second she took her eyes off where she was running to look behind her, she could feel the very tip of her foot get caught in something and she knew exactly what was going to happen.

She tripped on something, which was apparently a rock, and flew forwards finally falling flat on her face.

"Oh this is JUST great!" Ino sarcastically mumbled, not even really bothering to lift her face up from the dirt.

Her whole body ached. She stayed conscious, that was great. Ino managed to roll herself on to her back, and lifted her hand up to brush away the biggest patches of dirt from her face. Next she opened her eyes, growling from the pain that was slowly crawling up her body. Slowly she started moving, feeling that all her limbs were more or less in their dedicated places and nothing was severely damaged. Well, apart from her pride.

"Does it always have to be me?" the blonde princess sighed out of pure exhaustion and closed her eyes. Next she had to get up, which sounded easy, but with all of her energy completely drained, Ino almost felt like there was no chance in hell she would be getting on her feet. All she wanted to do was breathe and lay there. Just breathe for a good few minutes and not do anything. Her body wouldn't be able to take any more of this horribleness.

But there was only time for catching her breath. Ino knew she couldn't just lie on her back and do nothing - even though it was very tempting. She rolled back onto her stomach and pushed herself onto her knees with all the strength she had in her arms. With both hands pressed against her right knee, she started to push herself up, using all her remaining strength to get back on her two feet.

Suddenly she could feel the air around her move. It wasn't a normal breeze, she knew something was off. She couldn't see anything in front of her, which meant that the only way anything could possibly surprise her if it came from behind her. But how could she know if something was behind her without looking?

The princess listened carefully and didn't hear nothing. She'd stayed put for what appeared to be a forever. Now, Ino wasn't the most patient one out of the princesses, and it didn't take long until she got sick and tired of waiting for something to happen since clearly nothing was going to happen. So she let out a frustrated sigh and released herself from the tensed up state her body had been in.

She readied herself to continue her journey, shaking her legs and brushing her hands over her body to manage to get off most of the dirt and plant life she'd managed to get on herself. But Ino could still feel the odd atmosphere. She took a few steps, first just walking. Nothing happened. Then a few quicker ones, which were to get her speed up so that her running would start out smoother. Still nothing. Now she was in full run, maybe ten steps in, and something happened.

First she felt her arms being pulled to body and her chest constricted. Next went her legs, when she suddenly lost control of her movements when her lower limbs suddenly didn't move as she wanted them to. Now Ino's mind registered that she was really fucking screwed up.

And she fell flat on her face.

Again.

"You know this constant falling is really starting to piss me off!" Ino screamed, feeling that her limbs weren't moving like she wanted them to. She wiggled and contorted her body all kinds of ways, trying to free herself from the apparent restraints constricting her movements and breathing. Not successfully, obviously.

Suddenly Ino could feel herself being lifted off the ground by a rope which was tightly pressing her arms against her core. She managed to get a glimpse of a similar rope that tied her feet together before her body was spun around so that she was faced with the person who was lifting her up. Ino's face wasn't far away from her attacker's, her blue cerulean eyes staring into the dark brown eyes of the man now towering over her.

"The first time was your own fault."

His nonchalant, sarcastic voice echoed in the princess' ears, which made a vein in her forehead almost pop. But before she could come up with a snarky response, he pulled her to her feet.

"Hey!" Ino protested when he grabbed her hands and tied them tightly behind her back. "What the hell are you doing?"

"That's for me to know and you to find out."

Ino pressed her lips tightly together, holding back whatever was on her mind. She had been correct, this was definitely how she was going to die. Here and now, and she couldn't do anything about it.

Ino watched as her attacked pulled out a knife and her mind filled up with panic. Tears welled up in her eyes, her heart rate spiked up. This was her end. She prepared for the worst and closed her eyes, waiting for the impact of her flesh and the cold hard metal. But none of that happened.

The brown haired man cut the ropes that restricted her feet from moving. Ino could feel her heart rate slowly calming down, she carefully moved her legs.

"Now walk." Ino could feel his hand holding onto the ropes that tied her hands together. Ino tried to get away by resisting and struggling so that he would lose his grip, but he took a tight grip of her ponytail and yanked her head back so that her body came to contact with his.

"Nuh-uh, your idiotic escape attempts will only get you hurt." His tired i-told-you-so voice in her ear was really pissing Ino off, but he was so close to her that she could only think of the hot breath against the sensitive skin of her neck. Plus she wanted to keep all of the precious hair she could and not have any more of it ripped off. She needed to come up with a better escape plan, but she needed it fast. She wasn't sure how much time she had left.

Now he pushed her forward, so that she would walk. This time there was little to no space between them, he had a tight grip on both her hair and her hands. An unfamiliar scent flowed through the air and she didn't have to guess twice who it belonged to.

Suddenly a light bulb lit inside of her head and her lips curved into a mischievous smirk.

 _'Wind, I need your help.'_

Ino could feel a rush of energy comb through her entire body. She could feel tingles go up and down her body, like the energy inside of her core was releasing itself into a beautiful dance. She knew that now was it, it would be now or never.

So she forcefully started to struggle, move and resist with all the strength she had in herself. Her attacker obviously started to fight back and tried to keep her under control. He watched her struggle, but he knew that there was no chance that she would get away.

With a rough grip he tried to grab her neck so that he could really keep the girl from getting these annoying fits, but he could no longer see the messy blonde hair in front of him. He'd just felt it in his hand and it was now gone. He stumbled back and stared at the spot the girl had been in just a few seconds ago. The girl had just disappeared.

"Where the hell did she go?" He kept searching for that same blonde hair from all around him, but the search was pointless.

What he didn't know was that Ino was now long gone running away, invisible.

* * *

Sakura was the last one to get away. Honestly the whole situation had freaked her out really badly and her hiding spot turned out to be the worst she could've possibly picked. The slippery moss-covered rocks that her spot was surrounded by weren't the best things to try to run on. So she got the worst start out of all the four princesses, nearly falling down before she'd really even gotten away. It was pure luck that she managed to get out of there on her two feet, without any injuries and amazingly - alive. Now she needed to make up for having a - wait for it - _rocky_ start, so she ran the fastest she could.

What she didn't know that she was being followed.

Cold wind hit the pinkette's face, causing a stream of tears slide down from the corners of her eyes. She could taste the salty liquid on her lips, but didn't bother to wipe them away. In a way the tears were making her feel relieved, like when crying helps unleash bottled up feelings. This was pretty much that. She would run until she couldn't run anymore. Maybe that meant she would make it to the border, maybe it didn't. Was death really a worse ending than arranged marriage? Well, yes, but Sakura was in the point of no return. She wouldn't be able to wiggle her way out of this one.

Her balance was shaken when she felt a tight grip on her shoulder pulling her back. The pinkette managed to shake herself loose and remain free, but her built up speed was now gone and she had to stop. Running away felt too cowardly for her now anyway. Her eyes were filled with anger and terror, adrenaline was coursing through her veins and she was ultimately just pissed now that she thought about it. She did not climb out of the highest window for nothing, she did not just travel beyond everything she knew without any food, water or sleep to be killed by some guy with weird hair. No, that was not how her story was going to end.

She turned to face the man who had chased her, her emerald eyes landing on him. If the situation hadn't been as serious as it was, she would've probably burst out laughing. The weird spiky haircut of the black haired rider really did look even worse now that she was closer. She could feel the giggle bubbling up her throat, but she controlled herself.

The distance between them wasn't much, roughly a few meters if she was lucky. Sakura knew that it wasn't a distance long enough where she could actually have a chance of escaping. Guess she would have to face the man now standing in front of her. And not laugh, even if his hair was ridiculous.

"Leave us."

Sakura tried to sound the coldest she ever could. But as hard as she tried to sound dangerous and show little to no emotion, the rider did not even flinch. What she didn't expect was his mouth curving into a small yet arrogant grin.

"I can't do that." He said smirking. "That wouldn't be any fun."

Sakura's eyes widened and she felt her heart rate fasten. She felt her body tense up and she was in full fight or flight mode. She knew that conflict was inevitable and the guy just admitted that he had no intentions of backing down and leaving her alone. In her mind, there was no other way this could've gone and she had to make hard choices.

But when the rider started to take steps towards her, even though they were calm and slow, the tension that had built up inside of her caused her to react. She moved to land a punch on him before he would be able to attack her. Theoretically it was a good plan, and it could've worked, if he hadn't grabbed Sakura's wrist mid air and stopped her attack. He dangled Sakura by the arm, silently examining her with his onyx black eyes.

"You're going to have to do better than that."

Sakura wanted to scream. She wanted someone to know what was happening to her, but she just could not get a sensible sound out of her mouth. His grip on her wrist was tight and the fact that he was pulling her upwards by it was even more painful. But what was really freaking her out was that he was really close to her. Before she could even think about personal space, she felt a familiar pulsation going through her body.

She had no control over what was happening. The pinkette could feel her body going on defensive mode, but she had no idea what she was doing or how she was doing it. Then something twisted inside of her core so hard that Sakura almost twitched from pain. In the corner of her eye Sakura saw something fly right at her and her attacker so fast that she had no time to even react.

But the rider had to let go of her and pushed her body back in an effort of dodging the large boulder himself. It came way too close for comfort. So close to colliding with the two that Sakura could feel the drift of it when it flew past and crashed into a tree, knocking it down. Sakura was taken aback by what had just happened, but she also knew that this was her chance and that if she were to make a run for it, the time would be now.

Sakura couldn't even blink before he'd moved and appeared right in front of her face, wrapping his fingers around her slender throat. She couldn't even register how inhumanly fast he'd moved, but the feeling of pressure on her trachea caused her to panic. The princess tried to fight his arm off and dug her nails deep into the skin of the arm that was restricting her breathing.

Sakura expected to get some reaction out of the damn guy, but once again showed no sign of being hurt even with droplets of blood trickling down his muscular arm. What the hell was up with this guy?

"So that's why you ran." His words were left ringing in Sakura's ears when she was lifted off her feet by the throat. He watched her struggle to breathe before forcefully throwing her aside to the ground.

Sakura literally saw stars. Her whole body was hurting after her collision with mother earth, but even if she wanted to get a word out, she needed to breathe first. Sakura brought her hand protectively over her throat. She watched her attacker get closer to her but wasn't able to move away quickly enough.

 _'This guy can't be human.' Sakura thought before her chest was pinned to the ground by one of the rider's knees pushing down on her._

The pinkette stared deep into the piercing onyx orbs that were observing her. He lifted her chin up with his fingers, examining her face closely.

"You're an interesting one."

Sakura had to admit. He was really attractive. His strong features framed his face perfectly, his skin was perfect - even his eyelashes were. But she needed to remember that his guy was going to kill her, so there shouldn't even be the faintest thought about his attractiveness on her mind.

So the pinkette tried her hardest to glare at the dark haired man, but nope. He didn't even seem to notice.

"You won't get away with this."

Sakura instantly regretted saying anything, because now he actually looked in her eyes and the coldness of his stare gave her goosebumps all over. But his dry laugh was what really started to piss the pinkette off. Was he really laughing at her? Not being taken seriously had really been an issue with her in her kingdom and she would not take it any more. She ran away from it with the possibility of dying and now she had nothing to lose.

But the rider seemed to be amused by Sakura's evident change of attitude. "And annoying."

This addition caused something to boil inside of the princess, a vein in her forehead to pop out and a delicious burst of power started to bubble in her core.

"Get. off. ME!" Sakura yelled and pushed all the power she had left into this one last move she was able to control.

Her emerald eyes glistened with hate as she watched vines shoot out of the ground, wrapping themselves around her attacker and pulling him off of her. Surprised by Sakura's move, the man tried to shake and force the bloody plants off himself, but he was pulled away from the girl and his movements were restricted.

Watching the dark haired man struggle with the vines gave the princess so much satisfaction, but now she really had to leave. Sakura managed to get back up on her feet and started running. It didn't matter where, just anywhere she could. Her pace wasn't the best, she'd taken some major hits in her core and she had a small limp in her run but there was no turning back. She would continue on.

Then a bright bolt of lightning that illuminated the whole forest for a second split the sky. After the bright light disappeared, came the rain and massive thunder. Sakura was soaked in seconds, it was like someone was just pouring bucketfuls of water on her, which was weird since it had been really nice weather literally minutes before.

 _'What the actual hell is this weather?' Sakura thought while wiping away water from her face and shielding her eyes from getting any more water on them._

The weather had turned upside down. It had been such nice weather, the sunlight had peeked through the little holes tree branches couldn't block. But now it was raining cats and dogs, and the loud noise of constant thunder was overpowering her hearing. The ground was getting slippery, which made staying up on her two feet harder and harder. Her pink hair was dripping wet and was sticking to her skin, water dripping down her neck. Now even the weather was against her?

The change of weather had all of the pinkette's focus, so she didn't even see her attacker get up from the ground. His eyes were glued to her, his lips slowly curving when watching the pink haired girl's form slowly get farther and farther.

"This is getting interesting."

Sakura peeked behind her, where she didn't see the rider. Only ripped up and dead vines where he should've been tied to the ground. Now she really needed to quicken up her pace if she wanted to get away. Sakura managed to take a few big leaps before she felt a surge of pain going through her body, and her fast pace just died. She didn't fall or stumble, but she'd just stopped. The pinkette was completely frozen in place, unable to move her body in any way.

Sakura tried to move her legs, nothing happened. She tried to move her hands, still nothing. She tried to turn her head, but she still couldn't get herself to move. It was like her body wasn't obeying her at all, as if she was disconnected to her own body.

Raindrops fell down to her face, dripping down her fair complexion. Thunder rang in her ears and another bright lightning bolt illuminated the forest around her. She could see another shadow behind her frozen form, which meant that he was right behind her.

"Weak."

Sakura felt a sharp pain in the back of her neck, which caused her vision to softly blur before completely blacking out

* * *

Sasuke caught the girl before she hit the ground. Now that she was unconscious, he could really have a good look at her. She was very slender, probably hadn't eaten anything for a few days. Her unusually coloured hair was dripping wet and partially stuck to her face and neck. Her eyes were closed, her lips slightly parted. She looked peaceful, finally. She was something he'd never seen before.

He lifted the girl's limp body up and carried her back to the pond where their horses were. Water was dripping down from his chin, but he had no free hands to wipe the water away. When he finally got to the horses, he laid her down next to them, under a tree where she would be somewhat shielded from the elements.

It didn't take long until his friends either came back with the girls or came back their way chasing them. The weather wasn't that bad now either, the raining had toned down into a soft trickle that created a calming sound when the droplets hit the tree leaves.

First arrived his Naruto, who'd managed to capture the purple haired girl and was now dragging her with him. He was holding onto her hair and neck with one hand and her wrists with the other. She was still conscious and tried to fight off Naruto, who tried his best to hold her.

"Calm down, I'm not going to hurt you!" Naruto tried telling the girl, who was beyond hearing anything he tried to tell her.

Next arrived their white-eyed friend, Neji, who was carrying an unconscious, completely beaten up Tenten in his arms. She was an absolute mess. She had bruises all over her body and she was clearly bleeding from a few places. Neji had a limp in his walk and you could clearly see that she'd done some damage to him too. He definitely looked like he'd been in a fight. He didn't look as bad as the girl she was carrying, but his hair was a mess, the side of his neck had bruising and his arms were bruised, bloody or - burned?

Sasuke couldn't help but grin at the sight. Neji was absolutely pissed and Sasuke was loving it. "Got beaten up by a girl, huh?"

Neji angrily glared at him. If he wasn't carrying the girl, he probably would've done something worse. "Shut it."

Next up a screaming flash of blonde hair went by, Shikamaru not too far behind her on his horse. All three of the guys watched Shikamaru chase the blonde girl while she ran around in circles. For a while it was amusing, but after the third time of going around the same trees and the girl still running and screaming, it was starting to get a little boring.

Sasuke whistled to get the attention of Shikamaru, who was focused on following the girl. He glanced over to them and saw that all of the other girls were already caught. He and Sasuke exchanged looks without saying anything and he responded with a nod. He knew exactly what to do. Shikamaru stopped his horse and slammed his hands together, forming a sign with his hands.

This caused the running blonde to instantly fall down to the ground. The girl in Naruto's arms also lost her balance, but she didn't hit the ground like her friend, because she had someone holding onto her who kept her from hitting the ground. This though had no effect on the two already unconscious girls, who just lied still and didn't move.

"Why the HELL did we do this?" Shikamaru asked, clearly annoyed. He rubbed his right temple and tiredly glanced over to the blonde girl who was lying on the ground a few meters from him.

"Well we came to hunt, didn't we?" Sasuke nonchalantly answered, shrugging.

His response wasn't making anyone happy.

"Well what do you suppose we do with THEM now?" Neji asked, motioning to the unconscious girl in his arms.

Sasuke brushed the black locks away from his neck and ran his fingers over the dark tattoo-like birthmark. He glanced over to the pink haired girl. He knew what she'd been hiding, there was only one option for them.

"Lets take them."

* * *

❧ Goddess of Glam


	6. The cells

Chapter six: The cells

* * *

Sasuke started digging through the dark leather painnier that was tightly attached around his horse. After a while, he dug up some rope and as small silver dagger that shined in the minimal light the forest had. He twirled the blade in his hands before cutting two relatively short pieces out of it. The other guys watched as he tied the pink haired girl's wrists and ankles together, before lifting her on his horse, right behind his saddle.

Next up was Naruto's turn, to whom Sasuke threw the two items from his hands. Naruto laid the girl he had been holding down onto the ground, and easily caught the rope midair, but dodged the flying dagger.

"Bloody hell teme! You almost dug a hole in me with that thing!" The blonde yelled, trying to emphasize how annoyed he was by waving his arms in the air and vigorously pointing at the blade, which was now stuck to a tree.

"Just shut up and take it!" Neji commented in between rolling his eyes. He was still carrying the brown haired girl in his arms, which wasn't fun considering that she'd really beaten the crap out of them before. But now she looked peaceful. Even with bruises and blood covering her skin, she still somehow managed to look appealing. Something about the contrast of her fiery fighting and her serene appearance now intrigued him.

But dear god he did not want to be around when she woke up.

* * *

The guys took turns cutting the rope, repeating what Sasuke had done. Shikamaru was the last one to cut the last piece of the rope in two, before placing the dagger back to the bag where Sasuke had originally gotten it from. Then he was off to find where he'd left the blonde girl, who while falling unconscious had successfully managed to faceplant yet again.

Naruto felt really bad holding onto the ropes. He understood the girl's panic, he didn't want to hurt her.

"I'm sorry.." He softly whispered to the pale girl. He didn't like being this rough, it just wasn't his nature. Or maybe it was, but not in this situation. He would never want to hurt anyone who didn't deserve it. But when Sasuke looked over his shoulder to check if he was done, he didn't really have a choice. He tied up the girl's arms and legs, careful not to get any of her hair stands between the knot he tied around her wrists. He intentionally left the knots loose just to avoid hurting her and carefully lifted her up on his horse.

"Let's go then!" Neji tiredly huffed, anxious to finally get out of the god damn place. He limped over to his horse and practically threw the girl he'd been holding on the horse's back. She landed on her stomach with a thump, Neji could just feel all of the air getting pushed out of her lungs. He cringed at the sight, but wasn't sure if he was actually sorry or secretly glad because she got what she deserved for using him as a punching bag.

But with everyone else nicely sat up on their saddles, Neji chose not to look at the beaten up girl and got up on his horse. He stroked the light brown horse and tapped it's side gently before following his friends.

And they were off.

When on a horse, traveling even long distances wasn't that bad. It was quick, pleasant and a lot more comfortable than walking. Sasuke's black horse was first and led the pack. It wasn't only the fastest but also had the biggest ego - just like it's owner - so it was better for everyone just to stay behind him. They didn't need any more racing or accidents to happen.

The dark side wasn't that different from the lighter side of Quifilia. The forest was slightly thicker and didn't have a lot of light coming through the tree branches, but everything was mainly the same. They had the same exact trees and plants, same exact animals. The guys hadn't traveled long before it got a little sunnier. The forest became less thicker and darker when they got farther away from the border. Even the sun peeked from behind the treetops. The "dark" side wasn't that dark after all.

The hooves of the four horses made a loud clicking sound when they arrived on a light coloured stone bridge, that lead the four under a silver gate with beautiful markings spiraling down on it. After passing the gate, they slowed down. A long gravel path took them through a beautiful garden filled with colourful flowers and blooming trees. There were fountains all around with beautiful statues in the middle and the intoxicating smell of gardenias flowed through the air. It was like an oasis, it was like a paradise. Even the sky had cleared up and the sun was shining brightly over the white castle they were riding towards.

They finally arrived on a small courtyard, not too far away from the castle. The stables, which were located in a large light coloured stone building with a large entryway, were right on the other side of the courtyard.

"Princes, you are back early." They were greeted by a formally dressed, gray haired man that was standing in front of the stables.

"Yes Kakashi, we are. Now could you please get someone to take away our horses and alert the guards that we will be having visitors on our premises?" Sasuke asked the butler, dropping down from the saddle of his horse. Kakashi snapped his fingers and waited for staff to come from inside the stables to fulfill the prince's wishes. Confused by the princes having unconscious girls on their, he opened his mouth to ask details of these 'visitors', but he was interrupted by the staff coming to take care of the horses. Sasuke lifted the pink haired girl off of his horse and left his horse to the staff, who took it inside the stables.

"Artemis needs a good brushing, would you mind brushing her for me?" Neji kindly asked the woman who was holding onto his horse's reins. She was surprised by his request, but nodded in response.

"Yes prince, I would be glad to." She answered and waited until Neji lifted the girl off of the horse before she started walking the beautiful brown horse inside. She passed Naruto and Shikamaru, her curious eyes on the other two unconscious girls. When Shikamaru lifted the blonde girl from his horse, the marking that would normally be covered by her hair was completely visible to the maid's eyes.

"Oh my god.." She softly whispered, her eyes widening as she passed the two princes and entered the stables with Artemis. Before walking Artemis to her stall, she saw the girls being carried to the castle's direction from the corner of her eye.

* * *

Ino could feel the warmth of the sunlight, when it finally hit her skin. It felt pleasant, which tempted her to open her eyes. But the moment she did she was blinded by the rays of sunlight coming from a window she was directly in front of. She groaned and tried to move her hand to shied her tired eyes, but all of her limbs felt stiff, as if she hadn't moved in a long time. Ino proceeded to clumsily crawl away from the devilishly bright sunlight and rested her back against a wall.

"What the actual fuck.." the princess breathed out, as she slid her fingers on the cold stone floor she'd just woken up on. Her thought process was as stiff as her movements, she really couldn't remember what was going on. She could feel a headache pounding in the back of her head, but it started to get better as her eyes slowly got used to the amount of light in the room.

She saw metal bars surrounding the small square shaped space she was provided with. Okay, so she was in some sort of a cell. That was new. When she really focused her gaze to her side, she noticed a figure on the other side of the bars.

"Pink hair.." Ino mumbled, still trying to figure out the situation she was in. Her brain definitely wasn't working as sharply as before, but the pieces were starting to collect into a clear picture.

And then it hit her.

"SAKURA!" The blonde screamed, frantically crawling over to the bars that separated her from the unconscious girl. She grabbed a hold of one with her left hand, clinging to it while reaching through to the other cell with her right one. She prayed that her pink haired friend was okay, but she couldn't reach her even with the tips of her fingers.

"Wake up Sakura, please." Ino pleaded. She couldn't leave her. Not here. Not now. Her caribbean blue eyes welled with tears when she didn't hear a response, Sakura didn't even flinch. Ino turned to look around the room, seeing her two other friends also behind bars and out of her reach.

"Hinata.." She inaudibly whispered, turning her gaze from the limp blue haired girl to Tenten, who alarmingly caught Ino's attention. Her brain was slowly starting to work out all of the details now. She started to remember the forest, the panic, being chased. She remembered it all. She also remembered that she hadn't seen the other girls since they all bolted from their hiding places.

Tenten wasn't in the best shape. She was lying on her stomach, not moving. Ino couldn't tell if she was actually breathing or not. She had bruises all over body and blood on her clothes. She had cuts and wounds in multiple places, but they didn't look that bad. Most of the bleeding had stopped and nothing looked like she was in any immediate danger.

"Tenten, not you too." Ino groaned in exasperation and buried her face in her palms, letting her long blonde hair fall in front of her face. She was all alone, this was exactly what she'd been afraid of.

 _'This can't be happening' she thought to herself, holding a suppressed cry inside of her. Hearing a small rustling noise made her jump. She looked up from her hands with teary, confused eyes, only to see Tenten moving her bruised legs._

"Tenten!" Ino cried out and clung onto the bars that separated them. "Are you alright?"

She watched Tenten's body twitching and her eyes slowly opening. Ino felt joy lighting up her insides as she watched the brown haired girl get up, supporting her upper body on her forearms. It looked incredibly painful since her arms looked like they were in a really bad condition, but Tenten kept on pushing herself up until she was in a sitting position.

First she didn't say anything, she didn't really even give Ino a good glance. She examined herself first, checking out the wounds on her arms and legs, feeling that her body was somewhat okay. Only after she had made sure she was ultimately going to make it did she turn her eyes to Ino.

"Do I look alright?"

"Hell no, I thought you were dead."

Tenten gave herself another look and shrugged. "I'll survive, but we'll be needing Sakura's help for sure."

Then she turned to look at the unconscious pink princess. "So, what do you know?"

Ino gave the room they were in another good look. The room wasn't big, but it did hold a few cells in it. There were two rows of cells, both against one solid wall and an aisle separating them. The minimal light they had came from two windows, which were so high up that they wouldn't be able to reach them even if they tried. There was a large wooden door that most likely was the exit, which Ino had her eyes glued on.

"Well, not that much." The blonde princess sighed. "I've only been up a few minutes myself so not much more than you. What do you think happened to us?"

"No idea, I got knocked out by this one guy, but my god, if I ever see him again I will kill him and then KILL HIM AGAIN!" Tenten growled, clenching her fists and banging them against the floor. Which hurt. A lot.

"Oww.." her angered face turned soft as she softly blew cold air into her now more damaged hands.

Ino turned her gaze away from Tenten. In an attempt of standing up, she grabbed a tight hold of one of the bars that separated her and Tenten's cells, struggling to get up on her feet. Eventually she was able to pull herself up and support herself on her two legs, but standing up was slightly shaky at first. All of the effects of the running and traveling they'd done had now kicked in and Ino was not enjoying it.

"This was a bad idea, don't recommend." Ino commented to Tenten, who nodded in agreement when looking at her trembling legs.

"Yup, not even gonna try."

The blonde princess let out a frustrated sigh. "Well this is _just_ great! We're trapped in this stupid whatever-dungeon, Hinata and Sakura are both unconscious and you look like shit. I feel groggy as fuck and my powers are completely drained." Ino started yelling, frustrated words just exploding out of her mouth. Even Tenten was surprised by the blonde's use of curse words.

 _"Calm down woman!"_

An unfamiliar voice called out from behind them. Ino wasn't quite sure if to turn around or not, but she could feel a familiar presence. _H_ _is_ presence.

"It's you." She hissed and turned around to face the man from the forest. "It was you, you did this to us didn't you!"

Shikamaru's eyebrow raise gave everyone else's a run for their money. He was leaning against the wooden door that was the only entryway to the room, his arms folded across his chest and a smug look on his face. His brown eyes clashed with the cerulean eyes of the girl he'd chased for a good half an hour, who was currently screaming to him at the top of her lungs. Her face had turned from an ivory shade into a red that resembled a ripe tomato and she was clinging onto the bars of her cell like she was going to bend a hole in them to get through. He wasn't sure if he should be afraid and actually take this girl seriously, but he had to admit that he really liked her more when she was unconscious. Now she was just plain annoying.

 _'Damn Sasuke, what did you get us into..' Shikamaru thought, before pushing himself up and tiredly lifting his arms behind his head._

"If you'd just calm down, I could finally let you and your friend out."

Ino's yelling stopped and she confusedly eyed the man in front of her. She took a step back and folded her arms across her chest, clearly sceptical of his words. The tension between Ino and her kidnapper was so extreme that Tenten just quietly looked at the events unfold, making sure not to attract any attention to herself what so ever. Ino stared into the calm eyes of her kidnapper, who stared right back into her cerulean ones.

"Now why would you do that after you went through all the trouble of _kidnapping_ us?" Ino asked, her blue eyes examining him now that she could actually have a good look at him. His hair shined in the minimal lighting the room had. It was on a ponytail that still made his head slightly resemble a pineapple, but she was starting to get used to it. He was tall, he had broad shoulders and a generally well-toned body, which didn't seem compatible with the irritated look he seemed to constantly have. He had changed clothes from before and was now wearing a dark button-up shirt with the top two buttons left unbuttoned and black pants to complete the look. Guess he liked black.

"Well, your friend here", Shikamaru nudged to Tenten's relative direction not taking his eyes off Ino, "might want to get cleaned up from all the blood she's covered in and I doubt _you_ want to just hang around here with passed out people." He dug through the front pocket of his pants and lifted up a bunch of keys, which he dangled in front of Ino.

She backed against the wall when he approached her cell to open the metal door. "I know you still did it."

Shikamaru sighed, he was getting bored of this nonsense. "Yes I did, so calm down you troublesome woman or I'll do it again."

That shut the blonde girl's mouth much to Shikamaru's delight. He then proceeded to open the door to the other girl's cell, who hesitated when he stuck his hand out to her.

"I thought you might need some help getting up."

Tenten eventually grabbed his hand and let him pull her to her feet. She surprisingly managed to stay on her two feet and nodded a thank you to him, her eyes roaming his body looking for possible weapons he could have.

This got Shikamaru to cautiously take a few steps back. "I have no intention of hurting you, so there is no need to look at me like a punching bag."

"By the way, you really beat up Neji. Good job, really put his arrogant ass back to it's place." Shikamaru laughed and walked over to the door, pulling it wide open.

Tenten and Ino were both completely confused, Tenten slowly realizing that this 'Neji' was most likely the guy who'd beat her up.

Ino hesitated. "But what about them?" She asked, looking over her shoulder at the two unconscious princesses. She was as worried for them as much as she was for herself and Tenten. Were they just going to leave them behind?

Shikamaru noticed the girl's worry. "With time. They still need to rest for a while before they wake up." He calmly said and walked through the door.

"How do you kno-" Ino asked, but he was already out of the room and probably couldn't even hear her words.

Ino and Tenten looked at each other. They both knew that they couldn't trust anything that they were told right now, but at this point they had no other choice but to follow him. Ino helped Tenten out of her cell and supported her when they entered the staircase that lead out from the room. When she heard the thump of the wooden door closing behind them, she felt the guilt of leaving her friends back there digging a hole in her heart.

"You coming or not?" Shikamaru's voice called out from the staircase that they were in and the girls started climbing up.

"We're coming, okay?!" Ino yelled back, slightly irritated. They were plunging into the unknown and expected to just trust whatever they were offered. But right now they had no other options, they needed to get Tenten cleaned up and Ino was in serious need of resting.

* * *

Haha! I finally managed to get chapter 6 out! Now let me know if you want more of a specific ship or not, I'd be interested to know. And just to be clear the timing is kind of medieval but not really, I won't be following any clothing from that time or anything like that. It's modern, but not modern - if that makes sense. Lets just all agree that it's a mix of timings since it's a fantasy world, okay?

❧ Goddess of Glam


	7. The last one

Chapter seven: The last one

* * *

The sounds of distant footsteps filled the silent castle's corridors as they bounced off from the high ceiling. Everything was absolutely gorgeous from the clean white walls, to the marbled pillars with golden accents. What really drew attention to themselves were the large windows letting in sunlight and illuminating the whole palace, displaying an even more amazing view of the outside. Every once in a while there would be a humongous chandelier hanging from the ceiling, that would be the source of lighting when the beautiful sunlight couldn't illuminate the whole palace. Shikamaru wasn't even bothered to look around, the girls on the other hand were amazed by their surroundings. They were in awe as they walked, taking every little detail in.

But they were also confused by a lot of what was going on around them. Most importantly they needed to know where they were and why the hell did the place their kidnappers had taken them to look like this.

The girls had let Shikamaru walk ahead of them for a few reasons, following him a few steps behind. Number one being that he actually knew where he was going, unlike the two girls who looked like they hadn't faced proper civilization for a few months, just gawking at everything.

Number two was that if he actually was trustworthy, he'd escort them to a place where they could clean themselves and possibly even get patched up until Sakura could take a proper look at them. That was if they would ever see the pink haired princess again.

Reason number three was that they couldn't possibly hold up a pace that would keep the bored out of his mind Shikamaru behind them. Tenten was limping, Ino was supporting her body and that combined didn't result in an amazingly fast speed. It wasn't bad, but the process of moving forward wasn't as swift as it would've been if Tenten could've walked on her own. Now that didn't mean that they were slow, they did keep up with their "escort" quite nicely, but their average speed was slower than a normal person's walking pace.

The last and probably the most important reason for them to stay slightly behind was that IF things were to go wrong, they would at least have a small head start or they could slip into another corridor and hide. Of course this plan was flawed and was only to be used in the case of absolute emergency. They did leave Hinata and Sakura laying unconscious in their cells, where they were not only defenseless but also locked up. So because they could be potential hostages, black mail or dead, the smartest thing to do was to act nice before they could all figure out a plan to get out together.

Suddenly Shikamaru stopped after what seemed like a forever of walking around the castle and pointed them to a wooden twin door that had a beautiful carving of a tree.

"That takes you to the bath area. You can clean up over there. There should be a bell on the right side of the door if you need any help from the maids." Shikamaru apathetically instructed and turned away from the girls, walking away from them. Now they were left confused AND alone, great stuff.

"B-but hey! Who even are you?!" Ino managed to get out of her mouth, watching the man walk away from them without any further explanation or detail.

This caused Shikamaru to stop and turn around. His lips were curved into a smug smile and he folded his arms over his chest. Ino saw his body language change, he'd expected her to ask that.

"I am Shikamaru Nara, the crown prince of the Eastern kingdom."

This left both of the girls completely silent. Ino stared at Shikamaru with wide eyes, jaw almost to the ground. That pineapple haired guy, who had chased her in a forest for god knows how long was a fucking prince from the dark side of Quifilia. He was her sworn enemy and there he was, telling her were she could clean herself up.

 _'No fucking way..' She thought as she watched him walk away from them._

It took Ino a hot second to take everything in. She was so baffled by the information she'd just been given that she could've just been done with everything. There was no way that any of this was real.

"What. The. Actual. Fuck." Ino blurted out, especially emphasizing the last word of her sentence. The guy who kidnapped her was a prince? An annoying, slightly cute, but still very annoying prince?

What had her life come to?

"Let's just go.." Tenten sighed, as confused about the whole situation as Ino. Together they made their way to the door they had pointed to. Ino pushed one of the doors open and they both walked in, the door closing behind them by itself.

Hearing the wooden door shut behind them made Ino a little more at ease. Her life was so upside down right now that she hadn't even realized that she hadn't been breathing for a a while. She inhaled air through her nose and exhaled through her mouth, trying to calm herself down after everything that had happened. Everything was relatively fine now, she was somewhat safe and she and Tenten were alone now. After Ino calmed herself down, she finally focused on where they actually ended up after passing through the doors.

They had ended up in a medium sized room that essentially looked like a dressing room. It was a rectangular shaped room with a very high ceiling and a bright crystal chandelier hanging from the middle of it. Another source of light in the room was a lit fireplace on the right side of the room. In front of it was a set of furniture; two sofas and armchairs with a mahogany coffee table in the middle of them. There was a beautiful bouquet of purple and white flowers in the middle of the glossy table and the intoxicating smell of them filled the room completely. There were two tall windows with burgundy drapes overlooking a gorgeous view of the castle's garden. Ino's attention was drawn towards two paintings that decorated the walls. There were a few shelves filled with rolled up towels, soaps and all that kind of stuff which indicated that they had ended up in the right place.

"Where's the 'bathing area'?" Tenten wondered, looking around herself. They were definitely in some kind of a dressing room or whatever lounging area, but where were they supposed to go? Ino helped Tenten into one of the velvet covered armchairs, who then just let her body sink down into it. She was so exhausted that she could've just fallen asleep there. Even when they'd been unconscious, it wasn't exactly sleep. It wasn't rest, it wasn't peaceful - it was like her consciousness had been separated from her physical being. Ino searched around the room, inspecting the array of different soaps and grabbed a basket for them to put Tenten's ripped and bloody clothes in.

There was one door, a similar twin door that they'd entered from, on the opposite side of the room. Ino carefully twisted one of the decorative door handles and pushed it open, just a little bit so that she could peek inside. Ino was greeted with a warm misty breeze hitting her face. From the crack she could see delightful green plants and the smell of flowers was inviting her to have a closer look. Now she was really intrigued and pushed the doors wide open, revealing the beautiful scenery that awaited them.

It was like she had walked into a garden. There was a short curved staircase that lead to what Ino could only describe as paradise. The area was lined with a rock wall that had vines and plants growing against it. The whole place was filled with exotic plants that Ino had never seen before in her life. From the corner of her eye she could see a small pool filled with steaming hot water that called out her name. The pool was surrounded by a few rocks and flowers, with a small stream of fresh water bubbling to it from the far corner.

Ino's eyes glistened as she breathed in the humid air. She was in total awe of this "bathing area". It was like a secret garden of some sort.

"It's over there." Ino exitedly told Tenten when she returned inside. "And it's absolutely gorgeous." She admitted, closing the door behind her.

"Okay, let's get your out of those bloody clothes."

* * *

Naruto peeked from his hiding place. He'd been hiding behind a pillar not too far away, from where he'd watched Shikamaru take two of the girls to the bathing area outside and then proceed to leave them. When Shikamaru had left and the girls entered the door they'd been pointed to, the route was finally clear for him. He could now head over to the southern end of the castle undisturbed without anyone getting in the way.

He was about to do something that he could probably get scolded for, but maybe if he was sneaky enough nobody would know.

On his way he passed several maids and greeted them politely, before slipping into a small corridor that lead him down a spiraling staircase. He ended up in front of a big wooden door, which at first he didn't open. He stood there, staring at the dark wood.

 _'Am I really doing this?' He thought, pressing his palm against the smooth surface of the door._

For a minute or two he stood there, doubting himself and his actions. He breathed in and out as if preparing himself for something. And that something was something extremely stupid.

He pushed the rather heavy door open and was instantly greeted by the darkness of the room. A few cells revealed themselves from the darkness, his heart sinking as he distressedly watched the rusted metal bars. They trapped two unconscious girls laying on the stone floor that Naruto looked with cold eyes. He entered the room and heard the door silently close by itself after him. He almost wished that the door would've made some kind of a louder sound, because it would've made the silence that fell much less oppressive. He was in a room with two unconscious girls, who weren't there exactly willingly and where he wasn't even supposed to be in the first place.

Naruto slapped his forehead and dragged the hand down his face. "What the hell am I doing?"

He dug a pile of keys from the pocket of his pants and opened one of the two cells. He stood in the doorway of the cell before entering it, questioning whether or not to enter. He just couldn't stop staring at the dark haired girl, lying on the ground. Her hair was luscious and long, the blue hues of it making it something he'd never seen before in his life. It looked soft and silky, Naruto had to really restrain himself from just stroking the girl's hair.

Slowly and he hesitantly entered the cell and picked up the girl in his arms. She was still calmly sleeping, which in turn calmed Naruto down. It would've been really awkward if she were to wake up right there and then. Carefully Naruto lifted her up, her face falling to rest against his chest. This caused the blonde's heart to race, having the girl literally pressed against himself. He had no idea why he was doing this in the first place, but the though of having her wake up all confused on the cold hard floor of a cell made him feel uncomfortable.

He stood there for a while, marveling at the girl's beauty.

"Shikamaru's powers are still working I see.." Naruto whispered to the pale girl, holding her in his arms. Eventually he had to leave and stepped out of the tiny cell. He glanced at the other unconscious girl, who was curled up on the floor in the farthest cell.

"You'll be fine. I promise that someone will get you soon." He whispered, as if she could hear him. He really didn't know what he was doing, but he felt quilt tugging at his heartstrings for leaving the pink haired girl there. He just had something inside of him that pushed himself into making some very dumb decisions that included this girl in his arms who was an absolute stranger to him and whom he shouldn't have any thoughts or feelings about. They were essentially enemies, but Naruto couldn't bring himself into thinking that the girl in his arms could be anything like what he'd been told.

And then he carried Hinata out of the room, leaving Sakura there now all alone.

* * *

A familiar large wooden door swung open and hit the stone wall next to it causing a loud banging noise. A dark haired figure entered the room, the only sounds in the room being the breathing of two individuals. His eyes were on the unconscious girl and for some reason he couldn't take them off of her. There was something intriguing about her, something that bothered him so hard that he just had to come see her.

Sakura's consciousness was woken up by a distant sound of keys clinging against metal. She was floating somewhere far away, her mind and body disconnected. Everything going on around her was a blur, everything got to her with a slight delay. Then she felt something. It was a light touch, lighter than she'd ever felt before. Her skin felt warm against that cold touch. It traveled across her face, behind her ear and down her neck, tickling the most sensitive parts of her skin.

Then that magical touch tingling her skin disappeared. Sakura's inner self panicked as that soft and gentle touch disappeared, wondering if it'd been just her imagination.

Sakura's eyes slowly fluttered open as she finally regained consciousness. She couldn't really move, she felt groggy and stiff like a statue, her body still trying to process what had happened to her in the last 72 hours.

"What the-" Escaped from her lips as she tried to make sense of the situation and the place she was in. Everything was dark and she couldn't see much with her vision being as blurry as it was. Her eyes were drawn to the slightly out of focus metal bars that stuck out from the ground.

When she finally did move, to brush her pink locks away from her face, she saw a figure from the corner of her eye.

 _'Oh there's someone here. That's great, I guess..' Sakura thought to_ _herself, before her thought process really had time to catch up with the situation._

 _"Rise and shine."_

The deep masculine voice made Sakura's tired eyes fly open. She subconsciously sucked in air and turned to the person who was standing right outside of her cell, leaning against the bars of the doorway with his arms folded over his chest. Her eyes slowly focused on the figure, whose voice she instantly recognized, her heart pounding deep inside her chest. She pushed herself off of her stomach, lifting herself up into a seating position even though every joint in her body screamed not to move one bit.

"Did you sleep well?" Sakura was almost disgusted by how calm his voice sounded, how he just casually looked down at her. The mix of terror and wrath churned in her eyes, where she couldn't necessarily choose whether to cry out of anger or fear.

"Where the hell am I and what did you do to my friends?" Sakura demanded to know. She felt awful, but there was a fire inside of her that made her forget all of the physical pain she was in.

Sasuke didn't answer. He stepped inside of the cell, causing Sakura to back away from him as far as she could, which didn't turn out to be that far since the cell was smaller than the average closet.

"You won't get away with this." Sakura growled, her piercing gaze meeting with his. "What have you done with my friends?"

Now her voice was more on the level of lowkey screaming. Her fury filled eyes gave away more than she could've possibly told in a thousand words. Her head was starting to clear up and her thought process to return back to it's normal speed. Rage was basically oozing out of her, she was boiling on the inside.

"Get away with what?" Sasuke impassively asked her, tilting his head to the side. "You know nothing of what I've done."

"You have no idea what you've done." Sakura's emerald eyes narrowed. "You're bringing yourself a war."

The girl's words caused Sasuke to genuinely laugh. He was amused by how little this girl knew, the fiery look in her eyes just adding into it. He stepped closer to the pinkette, kneeling in front of her which caused her to back away against the wall of her cell. Her body tensed up, her breathing hitched as he got closer to her. He could see her moving wasn't relaxed nor natural just yet.

"I know exactly what I'm doing." He smirked. "And if you want to live, this is the only place you'll be safe in."

"You don't know what you're talking about." Sakura snapped, her eyes staring into the black ones right in front of her. She felt like she couldn't breathe properly, not when he was that close to her. Her words caused him to sneer, which confused Sakura.

"There's a price on your head. All of your heads." He brushed his fingers through his dark silky hair. "You would've been dead by sundown."

The silence and the shocked face of the girl in front of him indicated that she had absolutely no idea of what he was talking about. She was frozen, her heart sunk and there was suddenly a hole in the middle of her core just sucking her in. She couldn't believe what he was saying, he had to be lying. Right?

"And you didn't even know?" Even Sasuke was slightly surprised. "You've really gotten yourself into trouble, _princess."_

Before she'd even managed to register what he'd called her, Sasuke reached his hand out and roughly pushed her neck to the side. As her pink locks moved, they revealed the tattoo-like birthmark that she'd hid her whole life. Emerald eyes glistened as someone outside of her immediate family caught a glimpse of her most precious and private marking. He graced the mark, tracing the outline with his index finger. It was shaped like a flower and the way it suited her was absolutely mesmerizing.

Sakura flinched when he touched her. She violently shook her head and pushed him away. "You're lying."

Sasuke smirked at the girl's reaction, but pulled his hand back from her neck. "I have no reason to lie, just as you have no reason not to believe me."

The pinkette raised a questioning brow. "So getting chased, kidnapped and beaten up aren't good enough reasons?"

Sasuke had to admit, the girl did have a point.

"And you tried to kill me." Sakura said accusingly, just adding to the list of reasons why not to trust strangers.

"You attacked first, so that's on you." Sasuke shot her accusations down. "And I was not trying to kill you. If I were, you wouldn't be here sweetheart."

"Well if you know who I am then release me." Sakura demanded, bluntly staring at him. She knew that there were little to no chances of getting out now that she'd basically screamed at him and looked like a total idiot, but eh, it was worth a shot. What else could she have said in her situation?

Sasuke immediately stood up and walked out of the pinkette's cell, leaving the door wide open. "Well get up then."

He walked a few steps outside of the cell and looked over his shoulder if she'd follow him. Sakura on the other hand was absolutely baffled that he'd just complied to her demands, he just walked out and let her go. Her legs trembled as she tried to stand up.

"Why should I trust you?"

"You shouldn't." Sasuke coldly answered. "But you should know that we have no intentions of giving you precious little princesses back, so the only safe place for you is here."

And with that, he turned away from her and walked over to the door. Only in the doorway did he turn around to look at her again, not exactly surprised to see her standing in the very spot she'd been standing before. The fact that she was actually standing however did surprise him. Her body was shaking as she was feeling the aftermath of everything that had happened to her. Sasuke was almost impressed by her willpower.

"Or if you want to stay here I can lock the door and have someone bring you food every now and then." Sasuke shrugged, intentionally teasing the pinkette. "If you'd like that more than washing up and changing clothes."

"I didn't say that." Sakura was now just plain pissed. She marched past him, her legs shaky. The arrogance of just this one person had her boiling inside, which is probably why she wasn't focusing on looking in front of her and tripped on the first step of the staircase she oh-so confidently had marched in. She closed her eyes and inhaled quickly, her body awaiting for the impact. Suddenly feeling pulled back, she realized that he had actually grabbed her arm and pulled her back to her feet.

"Could you not be such a clutz and just walk up the stairs please or you'll die before anyone even has a chance to kill you because you managed to snap your own neck first." Sasuke spelled out tiredly, as if he was talking to a toddler. He brushed up against her body as he passed her in the narrow stairway, continuing his way up the stairs and leaving the pinkette behind.

"Hey! Don't leave me here!" Sakura yelled, clearly annoyed and sprinted up the stairs hoping that she wouldn't actually fall and snap her neck.

The bastard would have a field day if she did.

* * *

❦ Goddess of Glam


	8. You're safe now

Chapter eight: You're safe now

* * *

Sakura followed the dark haired man around the wide corridors. Her eyes were glued to her surroundings, as she marveled at the beautiful architecture of the building. Even the big windows and the astonishing view, the glossy marble floor with a burgundy carpet in the middle of most of the corridors – everything was grabbing her attention and she couldn't even pick where to look at anymore. But for a while now she had been wondering where she was. She couldn't have been in a castle, right? Why would she be in a castle? The architecture and the view, everything was pointing to it. But there was no way. She couldn't have possibly been taken back to her kingdom, could she?

"No. That wouldn't make any sense." She quietly murmured to herself.

"Did you say something?" Sasuke asked her, glancing over his shoulder. This alarmed Sakura, because she hadn't realized she'd been talking out loud, she didn't even think her whisper had been audible.

"N-no, nothing!" The pinkette tried her best to sound convincing, and apparently succeeded since he just turned his gaze away from her, acting like nothing had even happened. Her eyes were now on him. She watched his legs move as he walked, his back and his physique overall. He was tall, well-built and she could occasionally see the chiseled jawline that matched his picturesque features. His hair was sleek and black, but slightly spiked from the back. Sakura had to really distract herself from comparing it to the behind of a chicken. For a while they continued to walk in dead silence, and that was fine with Sakura, until her curiosity got the best of her.

"Umm, now that we're out of that dungeon-ish place, would you mind telling me where I am and where can I find my friends?" Sakura carefully asked, breaking the silence.

"You and your friends are in the Western kingdom of what you would probably call the dark side. This castle is for diplomatic meetings between the four royal families, but we just mostly spend time here." Sasuke explained, keeping his eyes straight on where he was going. "And what comes to your friends, they should be around here somewhere. Shikamaru mentioned something about taking them to the bathing area outside to get themselves cleaned up."

Knowing that her friends were alright made Sakura feel more at ease. She'd woken up alone, in a cell, which lead her imagination to the darkest corners of her mind where she didn't like her thoughts being. Next up on her worry list - she was still on the dark side and, yes she had guessed correctly, in a castle. What was that about? Sakura was very confused by everything going on around her. Who were the people who kidnapped them and why were they in a castle in the dark side?

"So." Sakura tried to keep the conversation going as she had even more questions to ask now. "Is this 'we' you're talking about you and your kidnapper friends who dragged us here against our will?"

Within a second Sakura felt herself being forcefully pushed against a wall with the dark haired man's body just inches away from hers. She had known he was tall, but what she'd thought of didn't match the figure now towering over her. He was overall bigger than her, the muscles in his arms showing through the shirt he was wearing as he pushed her to the wall by her shoulders. He was deeply staring into her emerald eyes with his cold onyx ones, drilling into her soul. Sakura felt like she could've drowned in the blackness of them, even though the rough edges of the beautiful carvings on that specific part of the wall pushing into the skin of her back.

"You and your friends should be grateful, when are you going to get that through your thick skull? If we wouldn't have found you first, somebody else would've and you would've died before sundown. We don't expect you to like what happened, but if you want to stay alive, you shouldn't insult the people who essentially saved your precious royal asses." Sasuke angrily hissed to the girl. In the heat of the moment he hadn't realized exactly how forceful he'd been with her, holding her tightly to the wall. He quickly composed himself, pulling his hands away from the girl. Good thing she was wearing a long-sleeved shirt, because he didn't want to see the marks he'd unintentionally left on her body.

"Let's go." He coldly spoke and started walking, trying to act like that moment never happened. He didn't want to think about it, he lost his temper and Sasuke Uchiha never lost his damn temper. The fact that this ungrateful princess managed to get such a reaction out of him was bordering on humiliating. And even still, a small part of him felt bad for hurting her even if he hadn't meant to do so.

Even when he let her go, Sakura had a hard time just bouncing back from the situation that had just happened. The rush of emotions she'd gone through in that short amount of time had her holding back tears. It wasn't that she was seriously injured, it was more the confrontation. She hadn't meant to be malicious or greatly insult anyone, but the reaction she saw was that he interpreted it in a way she hadn't meant it. But ultimately he was right. If things were as he said they were, he and his friends, even if they did chase them down and kidnap them, they did save them from potentially even more lethal threats.

Sakura gently rubbed her shoulders. Even though the adrenaline rushing through her veins took some of the pain away, but she would be sore for a while. She pulled the stretchy fabric of her neckline upwards and away from her body, before having a peek at her left shoulder. She had red marks and some bruising, but nothing too bad. It would definitely hurt more and look worse by the end of the day. Sakura lifted her gaze up and searched for the dark haired man, who was already way ahead of her.

 _'Damn, he's fast.' Sakura thought while sprinting in an effort of catching up to him._

* * *

"Go wash up, you look horrible." Sasuke spoke out to the princess, looking at her for the first time since the little event between them occurred. They had been absolutely silent after that, neither of them saying a word. He pointed her to the wooden doors that lead to the bathing area outside, not explaining it any further. When he saw Sakura glance at the doors, he came to the conclusion that she was fine on her own and walked away from the girl.

Sakura stayed put. Only after he was completely out of her sight did she have the courage to move away from the spot he'd left her in. Carefully she tiptoed to the doors and hesitantly opened them, not sure of what to expect. She was met by a pleasant, warm looking room and the distant sounds of females speaking sparked hope inside of her chest. She quickly entered and had a look around the room, scanning it through. It was a mix between a lounging area and a dressing room, but after everything she'd been through within the last 72 hours, she didn't find herself giving a flying fuck about the décor of the room whatsoever.

The voices got louder the farther she walked into the room. Her eyes were fixed on the closed twin doors that were straight across the room from her. She was absolutely certain that was where the voices were coming from. But even if she was certain, she carefully walked across the room, as if she was afraid that something would jump at her. She didn't hesitate to push the twin doors open, breathing in the fresh air that greeted her. She was almost relieved to get out of the room, even if wasn't anything there

The steamy, humid air warmed her skin. It was a nice, fresh change from the stuffy air inside and immediately lifted her mood. She felt at ease, her body relaxing part by part as she breathed the fresh air. Next her emerald eyes were on the small staircase that lead down to only what she could describe as a secret garden. The tropical colourful flowers, the fauna in general and the humid air excited Sakura as much as they confused her. Why were they there? She hadn't ever heard of such a climate existing anywhere in Quifilia.

She spread her arms wide, bathing in the sunlight and letting it hit her face. The sky was blue again, not a single cloud anywhere to be seen. Everything around her was absolutely gorgeous and she hadn't even gotten into the actual garden. She brushed the tips of her fingers against the waxy leaves of a large bush covered in delicate white flowers that climbed up the wall next to the staircase. The sweet scent of the flowers filled her nostrils, intoxicating the pinkette even further. For the first time in a long time, she was relaxed. She felt at ease. In that moment, everything was fine again.

Now she had the capacity to turn her attention into the garden itself. Her green eyes brushed over the amazing view, settling into the sparkling blue water that tempted her to get in. When she suddenly spotted two familiar faces in the water her eyes sparkled out of joy. She kicked off boots, leaving them behind as she swiftly descended the staircase and sprinted towards her friends.

"Sakura!" Ino gasped in surprise, her face instantly brightening from the happy reunion. She was in the pool with Tenten, trying to wash all of the blood off of the poor girl's skin. Well, it wasn't exactly a pool. It was somewhere between a hot spring and a pool, but the definition of a hot spring seemed more appropriate.

"Ino! Tenten!" Sakura felt so happy she could've cried as she reached the end of the cut grass, Ino reaching to touch her hand from the pool.

Suddenly the skin between the pinkette's brows wrinkled. "You're in a pool?"

She was alone in a dungeon while they were here relaxing and bathing in this gorgeous garden? That would be the definition of unfair.

Ino rubbed the back of her neck, awkwardly trying to smile. But the pinkette's jealousy only lasted for a couple of seconds. When she saw Tenten all of her other thoughts vanished. The girl was in a bad condition. She was in the shallower end of the hot spring half sitting half floating. But even if she looked bad, it still wasn't the worst Sakura had seen of her. She was bruised all over and had some shallow looking cuts on her arms and torso. Her hair was down, it was all tangled up and had dried blood on it. Yummy.

Tenten saw the worried, analyzing face Sakura was making while looking at her and waved her hand like it was nothing.

"I'll survive. It's not like I haven't been through worse." Tenten reassured, smiling to the pink princess. It was true, she would be banged up for a while, but the damage was mostly cosmetic.

Sakura felt a faint smile forming on her lips. "I'll have a look at you later and we'll see what I can do."

Now it was Ino's turn to face Sakura. Her eyebrows were back to being furrowed, her both hands resting on her hips. She wanted an explanation from the blonde, who firstly owned her one and secondly knew more about what was happening than her.

Ino noted the questioning look the pinkette was giving her. "After we woke up in the dungeon place, one of the guys, the pineapple-haired one, led us here and said that we could get Tenten cleaned up. We haven't been here much longer than you, somewhere around half an hour." Ino explained, pointing to the girl who still had smeared blood on her skin. "BUT we've only been in the pool for like ten minutes."

That addition was very much necessary.

"Leave your clothes inside and get in." Ino encouraged her friend, motioning her to go inside. She was holding a small sponge that she'd used to clean blood off of Tenten's skin. It was now a deep cardinal color, but she was going to need help if they were going to get the rest of the blood off of her plus her wounds cleaned.

Sakura nodded in response. The relief and happiness that reuniting with her friends brought her gave her new energy. But before she went back inside, she looked around her. She felt something missing from the situation. Something was missing and she just couldn't get what it was.

And then she finally realized.

"Where's Hinata?"

* * *

Hinata felt like she'd woken up from a terrible nightmare. Her eyes shot open and she instantly jolted up from laying down into a sitting position. Her heart was racing a mile a minute, her body ached and she had no idea where she was. She was completely drained of energy and it was a miracle she was even up and awake after the day she'd had. Her vision was blurry and a pounding head ache rippled through her skull.

Her blurry eyes slowly started to see things, the first thing she could focus her gaze on being her feet that were neatly laid next to each other on a soft bed. She felt slightly fuzzy, like her mind was clouded and she couldn't get her thought process started. In her dazed state she stroked the velvety fabric of the duvet that covered the large bed she was sitting on. Slowly her vision and mind started to sharpen and she started to look around the room she was in. Deducting from the bed, it was a bedroom. Quite a large one in size, much like hers but obviously not _hers._

The high ceiling had a bright, sparkling chandelier dangling from the middle of it. Most of the lighting in the room came through the giant windows almost taking up a whole wall and bounced off from the cream coloured walls. The marble floor had an enormous royal blue carpet in the middle of it and blue theme was continued by matching drapes. Overall the room was full of light and well-decorated, with an intoxicating smell lingering in the air.

Then she was met with the most dazzling blue eyes she'd ever seen. Hinata blatantly stared at the man they belonged to. His perfect complexion and shiny blonde hair, his effortless position. Even the light coming from the windows behind him gave him an angelic glow. He was sitting in an armchair not too far away from her, his chin resting on his palm and his eyes on her.

"You woke up." He spoke calmly, careful not to spook the just woken up princess since she was obviously not feeling the best. "Are you feeling alright?"

Hinata didn't know what to say. Hell, she couldn't even get a word out of her mouth. She was completely overwhelmed by the situation she was in. The last thing she remembered was running for her life and then after being captured just blacking out. And now she woke up to this? With a gorgeous man softly speaking to her who most likely was the one person she was trying to run away from? Not the easiest thing to wake up to.

"Uhh.." She managed to get out of her mouth.

The man smiled at her. "Just calm down, it's okay."

Hinata drew in a breath and closed her eyes.

"I'm exhausted, absolutely terrified and in a room with a person who previously tried to kill me. But other than that, I'm doing just fine."

Apparently Hinata was still feeling a little foggy, because even she was surprised by the words that came out of her mouth. She rarely ever was that straight forward with anyone ever, and the fact that she blurted out such a thing in a situation like this was unheard of for her.

The blonde man was not expecting to get such an answer from the girl's mouth and didn't know any other way to answer it but with a nervous laugh. He kneaded the back of his head, not really knowing what else to answer to her.

The blue haired princess looked at his sheepish expression. Was this really the same guy who'd chased her in the forest?

But before she could get an answer from the man, realization hit her.

She gasped, her eyes widening to the size of dinner plates. "Where are my friends? Are they okay? Oh god I have to find them!" Hinata abruptly threw her legs off of the bed, trying to get off as quickly as she could, but the second her feet touched the ground all of the feeling in her legs was gone. She let out a whimpering 'yelp' as she watched the world around her spin.

 _"Don't!"_

The blonde launched into a sprint when he saw the girl on the bed move and caught her before she could hit the floor. He held her his arms like a delicate flower, carefully laying her down back on to the bed as if she was going to break.

"You shouldn't be moving this quickly, you still need to rest for a bit more. Your friends are okay and safe, they are here and being taken care of." He tried to calm the poor girl down the best he could. Slowly her body relaxed and her breathing slowed down. Thank god her friends were okay. She wouldn't know what to do without them.

The blonde sat on the bed beside the blue haired princess, but was careful not to touch her. She was clearly confused and scared, and after what had happened, what she had made happen, in the forest he didn't want to get on her bad side.

"I'm not going to hurt you or your friends, I promise." He reassured, gesturing her to lay back down. "And I _never_ break my promises."

Hinata slowly nodded to him, as if she was capable of giving a better answer to him. She didn't move away when he sat down next to her on the bed, and even if she'd wanted to she wouldn't have had the strength to do so. Now he was way closer to her than before. She breathed in the intoxicating smell and cursed in her mind. It was his scent.

 _'Why does he have to smell so good..'_

"I'm sorry that I scared you before." He tried to apologize to her, not really being able to look her in the eye and avoiding her gaze. "It's just that if we wouldn't have found you and brought you here, you would've been found by somebody else and that would've been very bad for you.."

Hinata stared at him, confused by his words. "Why?"

Now it was his turn to look into her eyes. From up close he could see that they weren't only pearly white, but had an unusual hue of lavender that complemented the dark blue tone of her hair. For some reason he just couldn't stop looking at her. Even if she looked slightly disheveled, he would've been lying if he said that she wasn't one of the most gorgeous women he'd ever seen.

It wasn't easy for him to tell her why. He found himself holding back the words, but he wanted her to know the truth why they took them out of the forest.

"Because we know who you are." He admitted, letting the words just fall out of his mouth.

Hinata was completely surprised. This person whom she'd never met before knew who she was. She could feel her heart beat faster and she quickly drew in a breath, knowing that she was now completely exposed. The slight protection that hiding her identity had given her was now gone.

"S-so you know I'm a..." Hinata stammered, trying her best to get the words out of her mouth and terribly failing at it.

"A princess, yes." He finished her sentence for her. "Your kingdoms have announced you as fugitives and there's a price on your heads. If you're returned alive, you would suffer the consequences of treachery back in your kingdoms and most likely face whatever you ran away from in the first place."

Tears pooled in her eyes as she listened to his words. Something inside of her that had amazingly kept her together until now just snapped, tears falling down to her cheeks. She felt exposed, she felt broken. Her family first wanted to force her into something she didn't want and had now disowned her for doing the only thing she could to rebel against that. They would get her back and force her into a marriage even if there was a chance that she was killed in the process.

He saw her slowly break down, and without thinking much about it he wrapped his arms around the slender girl. "But because you're here with us on our side, we have no obligations to return you."

For a second Hinata thought about pushing him away, but the warm embrace left the girl in such a shock that she couldn't move. More tears fell down her fair cheeks, she had entered a state of mind where she didn't care anymore.

He didn't expect her to lean against him, burying her face into his chest. He could head soft sniffles as she quietly started to sob. He understood the girl, he'd seen the hurt in her eyes that explained her pain to him better than she could with words. He instinctively held the fragile girl in his arms, as if she was made out of glass and would break if he touched her the tiniest bit too roughly.

Hinata let tears stream down her face, choking down the desire to just scream. Muffled cries filled the room as she clung to the only material she could, which was the shirt her face was pressed up against. She looked like a mess, she felt like a mess and was completely messed up in every other way possible. The fact that she was being comforted by an absolute stranger didn't even cross her mind anymore. She only felt the comfort that the arms wrapped around her gave her.

The blonde rested his chin on the top of her head and quietly hushed her soft cries. One of his arms was wrapped around her sobbing figure, while the other one softly stroked her back. He was as baffled by the situation as much as she was, but he understood that the most irrational things could happen when females were upset. He closed his eyes and patiently listened to the upset girl.

"It's okay, you and your friends are safe now. No one can find you here, you'll be safe here. Nothing can hurt you here and anything like that will never happen to you again, I'll make sure of it." He comforted her in a hushed tone, her cries quieting down over time.

She felt broken. She was exhausted, alone and scared. But in this odd situation, he was making her feel better. He, who chased her in the woods. He, who she was sure was going to kill her. And apparently by kidnapping her and her friends, they had actually saved their lives from getting killed or taken back to their own kingdoms.

They stayed like that for a while, Hinata just resting herself against his chest and having his arms wrapped around her. She didn't mind him being so close to her anymore. She breathed in his scent every time she took a breath, which started to feel comforting. Finally she parted her face from the soft fabric of his shirt, looking at the darkened spot on his shirt that was now dampened by her tears.

"I'm sorry.." She quietly whispered, ashamed of herself. She tried to back away from him, but he held her in place and looked down at her.

"It's okay." He kindly smiled to her. Everything that he'd said he'd meant one hundred percent. He'd assured her that she was safe, but where exactly was she safe? And who was this person who made her feel safe, who comforted her, and absolute stranger, when she broke down.

Hinata took a while to gather herself, wiping tears away from her eyes and face. He brushed the stray blue hairs away from her face, looking at her. She felt captivated by the pair of azure orbs staring into her lavender ones, like she could drown in their blueness.

"Are you feeling better?"

Only after she'd answered by a nod did his arms entangle from around her and pull away. She almost missed the warm embrace, but was met with an equally warm smile that made the skin behind her neck tingle.

"Where am I?" Hinata's hushed voice peeped out. Her eyes wandered around the decorative room.

He knew that question was coming based on the fact that he stood up from the bed in all his glory and his lips curved into a slight smirk.

"You are in the Western kingdom of what you like to refer to as "the dark side". This castle was built for the diplomatic meetings between the four royal families, but since there is never any need to use it for diplomatic purposes, me and the guys just stay here."

Hinata looked around. That would most definitely explain why the room she was in looked like this. So she was in a castle, that was nice. The fact that there were only a handful of people who were allowed access to this castle made her feel slightly more comfortable, safer in a way. But who in the world was he then?

Before she could even open her mouth, he knew what she was about to ask.

"And me? My name is Naruto Uzumaki and I am the crown prince of the Northern kingdom, milady." He revealed, playfully bowing to her.

Hinata was shocked to say the least. If she wasn't so surprised, she would've probably laughed at his playful formality. So the person who had kidnapped slash saved her and then comforted her, was basically the last person whom she'd ever thought would do that. He was her mortal enemy, but didn't match anything that she'd been told about the royals of the dark side.

"Prove it."

Naruto decisively sat back down onto the bed and turned around so that she could have a clear look at the back of his neck. Hinata was amazed by the completely black, delicate birthmark that decorated his skin. Every royal in Quifilia possessed a mark, it was the mark of royal blood.

Hinata reached out to trace the small star with her slender fingertips.

So he was cute and a prince, dang.

"I guess you looked at mine too?"

Naruto sheepishly nodded, turning so that he was facing her again. In a way Hinata felt violated, since the mark was something only to be seen by your immediate family and no one else. It was something personal, something that would only have meaning to the person who carried it. But she understood, it was the only way to actually confirm the identity of a royal.

"It's a drop of water." He spoke out, lips curving into a smile. "The only difference between ours is that while our marks are completely filled in, yours are only outlines of things."

In Hinata's mind it made sense. Black and skin coloured, dark and light. There was a divide between the royals just as there was divide between the nations.

"Now, if you don't mind me asking, what is your name. You know mine so it's only fair if I know yours." Naruto grinned, brushing his fingers through his spiky blonde hair. The warmth of his expression caused Hinata's lips to curve into a soft smile. It was the first time he'd seen her smile.

"Hinata." She answered, her mood slowly being lifted by the blonde prince.

"Well in that case Hinata", he started his sentence and did something that Hinata did not see coming. He lifted her up from the bed, one arm supporting her back and another one behind her knees. Once again another yelp escaped the princess' lips and she was startled by the sudden lifting. She didn't know what to say or how to react exactly.

"We should probably go and find your friends so that you can make sure everyone is okay."

Hinata nodded to his proposal, agreeing to it. The sudden closeness of their bodies caused her normally pale cheekbones to be dusted with a rosy tint. She felt the heat on her face and tried to look away from his well-framed face.

Naruto looked down at the girl who was persistently trying to avoid his gaze. He smirked at the girl's reaction when he caught a glimpse of her flushed skin. She was no doubt surprised by his actions, but he couldn't let her walk yet. She didn't have the strength or energy to walk, so if he carried her there would be no need to worry about that.

"You can wrap your arms around my neck for support, if you want to." Naruto added as he walked out of the bedroom, holding Hinata in his arms. Quietly her slender arms sneaked around his neck and Naruto smiled when he felt her body slowly relaxing. Shikamaru had said something about getting the hurt girl washed up and he'd seen him take the girls to the hot spring outside, so that was where he was headed.

* * *

❦ Goddess of Glam


	9. I'll make it work

Chapter nine: I'll make it work

* * *

Hinata's eyes fluttered, her heart racing and skin tingling from the places he touched her. She wasn't in her element, having a gorgeous man carry her in his arms from one place to another. That wasn't something you'd just casually get to experience every day.

Not even as a princess.

The blue haired princess wasn't sure if she was able to breathe yet. She'd felt the tightness in her chest as long as he'd been holding her, but wasn't sure how long she'd actually held her breath. The flashing lights and blurry vision seemed to indicate that maybe for a little too long.

So she deeply inhaled, her lungs filling with the masculine yet oddly sweet fragrance that belonged to the prince currently holding her. The way she was reacting to him was bothering her. He was an absolute stranger AND her mortal enemy by blood. She'd met the guy only a few hours before, talked to him once only after he'd kidnapped _slash_ saved her and then had him comfort her after absolutely just breaking down at the worst time. And now this man – _prince_ – was holding her awkward figure against his chest, because she was too exhausted to be allowed to walk on her own.

 _Oh great._

She didn't necessarily agree with him, but she did feel weak. So weak that she couldn't walk? Maybe, maybe not, but since she didn't get a single word of protest out of her mouth. She'd just nodded, and he'd walked out of the room. It had been quick and that simple. The situation was bizarre and mind-boggling, but she couldn't exactly complain. He was absolutely gorgeous.

The blue-haired princess didn't know what to feel exactly. Her arms were around the blond prince's neck, the tips of her fingers brushing up against his spiky, yet silky soft strands of hair.

He had chased down in the forest, taken her with him, then comforted her and now he was doing this? But no, what had seemed like a kidnapping had turned out to be him and his friends saving her and her friends, who would've most likely either been killed or taken back to their kingdoms where the consequences were most likely worse than just being killed for money. Added to this, she had run away and was now a traitor. Guess she wouldn't be welcome back for the holidays.

Dear god had she had a strange few days.

"Y-you can put me down now, if you're tired. I know I can be heavy." Hinata quietly murmured, her tone laced with slight embarrassment.

Naruto turned his eyes to her, looking directly into her lavender eyes. "Who told you that?"

"No one, I just.." Hinata tried to say, but was cut off when she saw Naruto raise his eyebrows, clearly amused.

"Your perception of heavy is completely different from mine." The blonde prince chuckled as he carried her down the hallway. Now Hinata was clearly embarrassed. The tops of her cheeks felt hot as she started to blush, her lips pursing together.

* * *

"I-I think I can walk now. " Hinata tried again a few minutes later. It wasn't that she didn't enjoy the moment. It was the most fairytale princess experience she'd ever had – having her saviour prince carry her down the beautiful hallways of his castle. But she constantly felt hot and couldn't breathe when he held her so close. She felt self-conscious for having him carry her all the way to what seemed to be the other side of the castle. She wouldn't call herself a burden, but that's what she felt like. Then her eyes met with his dazzling blue ones, a small smile curving his lips.

"Nope, you're way too weak and I'm not gonna watch you hurt yourself. Don't worry, we'll be there soon anyway."

Naruto studied Hinata's face, looking for some clues as to what she was thinking about, dragging his eyes down her figure. It was a habit of his. Spending most of the time he had with three guys, from which two were mute and one constantly asleep, it didn't exactly spark a conversation. So studying their movements and expressions was most likely the only way he could see what was going on with them. They were boring, but at least he knew what they were thinking. But her he just couldn't figure out.

Hinata didn't say anything, she wasn't able to. She was mesmerized by the sparkling blue orbs that were locked with her own. Naruto clearly saw and knew that she was exhausted, way more exhausted that she would ever admit.

Then he redirected his gaze from her face to the long hallway he was currently walking in.

"Why are you doing this?"

It was the third time she'd spoken to him after they left the bedroom he'd placed her to wake up in. Her soft voice matched the softness of her other features. Even when all of the muscles of her body were tensed up and she wasn't breathing properly, she still managed to sound and look like an angel to the blonde prince.

"What exactly?" Naruto flashed a grin to the dark haired princess in his arms. Hinata once again felt the familiar heat rise up to her face, so she quickly turned her gaze away, coming to the conclusion that the light coloured walls were interesting enough for her to stare at them.

"You know." She spoke, twirling a strand of hair around her right index finger out of nervousness. Naruto could feel her breathing again, as her chest gently pressed against him.

"Being so nice to me."

Naruto thought about the words that came out of the blue haired woman's mouth. He really had to think about them. There was no real reason for him to act this way. It was a good question that even he didn't know the answer to.

"I had a feeling."

A silence fell between the two. The only sounds to be heard were Naruto's steps on the glossy marble floor and their breathing. And they stayed that way all the way to the same wooden twin doors that all of her friends had encountered before her.

Which Hinata of course wasn't aware of.

Naruto gently laid her feet on the ground, slowly detaching himself from her, making sure she was able to stand. Hinata released her arms from around his neck and looked at the smirk he had on his face. For a man who had chased and kidnapped her, he wasn't half bad. He could've killed her, but he didn't. His actions spoke louder than words, he was gentle and understanding. He wasn't anything like what she'd been told about the royals of the dark side. And since she wasn't leaving any time soon, considering her being a fugitive and all that, she would have some time to figure him out.

That was if her friends hadn't concocted a plan of escaping, of course.

"Hinata?"

The familiar, kind voice snapped her out of her thoughts. He'd apparently been talking to her, but she'd just spaced out and not heard a single thing he'd said. Hinata felt herself tense up again when she snapped out of her thoughts. This wasn't the type of behavior that was tolerated from her at home – _ex-home._

"Huh?" She reacted, instantly regretting the unintelligent sounding voice that just escaped her lips.

Her reaction caused the blonde's lips curve into a warm smile.

"I said that go through those doors", he pointed at the wooden twin doors, "and you'll get to a dressing room. Your friends should already be there waiting for you, so just go through the next door, stairs down and you should find them there."

Hinata returned his smile with a shy curve to her own lips.

"Thank you." It was more of a whisper, but Naruto heard it perfectly clearly.

"You're very welcome." He answered smiling. Hinata liked his smile, it was warm and reassuring.

"I'll send someone to give you clean clothes and escort you to lunch after you're finished. But, if you'll excuse me, I have something to take care of before that." Naruto spoke politely, just how he was taught to speak to women by his mother. With his friends it was different, it was casual and not formal at all, but considering the situation, it felt appropriate. Her being a princess and all.

"Princess." He playfully bowed to her again, causing Hinata to quietly giggle and turned away to walk back the way they came. Soon he was out of her sight. Hinata stood there for a while, just going through today's events in her mind and what had just happened.

She then proceeded to slap herself on the forehead. Hard.

"God, Hinata! Why are you like this?" She angrily scolded herself, as she entered the room he had pointed her to.

* * *

"Hinata!" Three loud voices called out in unison as the blue haired princess entered the garden. She hadn't even got herself out of the doorway before her friends already cheerfully knew of her presence. It was just like Naruto had said, they were all here waiting for her.

With a huge smile splattered across her face she walked over to her friends, who were now all swimming in the warm water.

"Where were you?" Sakura asked after she'd walked over to the edge of the hot spring, resting her chin on her right palm.

Hinata raised a questioning eyebrow. "What do you mean where was I?"

"Ino said you were in the dungeon whatever-place when she and Tenten left, but when I woke up you were gone!" Sakura explained, looking at the now very confused princess, who had no idea what just came out of her mouth.

Hinata just blatantly stared at her pink haired friend. What the hell was she talking about?

"What."

It was a statement, not a question. Hinata did not have any idea what dungeon they were talking about and she sure did not know about being in one. So what was this dungeon they were talking about? She'd blacked out in the forest and woke up in a bedroom. She didn't know anything to have happened between those two points in time. So where the hell had she and her friends been while she'd been unconscious.

The three other princesses blinked at her, not saying anything. A silence feel amongst the four princesses, Hinata staring down at the ones in the water and all of them staring right back at her. The confused looks on their faces gave away that their communication skills weren't exactly pulling through.

Hinata sighed, kneading her forehead with her index finger's knuckle. She would have to explain this further.

"I woke up in a bedroom and have no recollection of being in any sort of a dungeon. So what the hell are you guys talking about?"

There was another moment of silence, the three princesses now blatantly staring at Hinata with mouths hanging open. Hinata didn't even know what to say, so she just blinked and came to the conclusion that they didn't need to know about anything else, not with the looks they were giving her. So she kept her mouth shut about the rest of the events.

Which was smart because she would feel the wrath of her friends rain upon her.

All of the three princesses started violently splashing water on her at the same exact time. Hinata let out a cry for help as she tried shielding her face with her arms. Even as she tried to move, somehow they still managed to get water all over her. It didn't matter how she screamed or tried to get away from the splashing of water, they still managed to get her.

How could her own element betray her like this?

"You're going to pay for this!" Ino yelled, splashing huge amounts of water in a fit of jealous rage on the poor girl.

"We wake up in a cell and you were in a fucking bed?!" Sakura screamed, fire glistening in her emerald eyes. She'd woken up alone in a cold cell and got harassed while everyone else was either in a pool or a bed. The definition of unfair just got better and better.

Only when Hinata was absolutely soaked, they finally stopped. Water dripped down onto her face from the tips of her hair stands. She was drenched from head to toe, her hair and clothes dripping wet. And Hinata just stood there like the victim she was. What the hell was her day become?

"What the hell guys?!"

* * *

Well, eventually Hinata got into the bath too after everything calmed down. They all spent a well-deserved while just soaking in the warm water, breathing in the fresh air and smell of the exotic flowers. Ino had picked up different soaps, shampoos and lotions for them to try out, which eventually worked out great because they managed to get all the blood off of Tenten's body and hair.

The rest of the girls also came to the conclusion that they were also in need of some serious hair therapy, so everyone came out of the hot spring fresh, squeaky clean and smelling amazing. It was a nice change from the sweat and dirt they'd accumulated on themselves over the past 72 or more hours.

They ended up just wrapping themselves in the white soft towels and bath robes, and settled on sitting down on the sofas and armchairs that were neatly placed around the mahogany coffee table.

"Okay so, what the hell is going on?" Sakura was interested to hear what the rest of her friends knew, resting her head against the back of the soft armchair.

"Well the most important thing is that we're not back home." Tenten pointed out, the others vigorously nodding their heads in agreement.

"Yep, from what I was told we're in the Western kingdom of the dark side, in some sort of a diplomatic castle." Hinata told them, tucking a few loose hairstrands back into the towel wrap around her head.

"And they know who we are." Sakura announced, grazing her fingers over the red marks on her shoulders. Now she should have enough energy to take a look at Tenten's injuries and maybe the rest of theirs after that.

Ino's eyes jumped when she heard Sakura. "And is that why they took us?"

"Yup."

"Yes."

"Most likely."

But the fact that they knew who they were absolutely screwed with their plans of pretending to be normal. Nope, that cat was out of the bag and any plans with pretending to not be a princess went out of the window.

"But do we exactly know who they are?" Tenten tried to bounce back from the knowledge that their plans were now pretty much useless.

"Yup." Hinata pressed her lips together, her tone absolutely humourless and trying to hold back any thoughts from before. "The blonde one is a prince."

"And the one with the pineapple hair as well." Ino quickly added, remembering the moment he'd just ever so casually smirked and left her and Tenten just standing there with their mouths open.

"So two of the four are definitely princes?", Sakura clarified, earning nods from the other three, "Well, considering that at least the one I was captured by has powers, he's most likely royal as well. So it would be safe to assume that all four of them are at least royal."

Hinata agreed with her pink haired friend's reasoning, nodding her head as an answer. She clearly remembered the way the blonde prince had talked about his friends just spending time in the castle. The fact that they were all members of the royal families fit into the picture quite well if not perfectly. Just like the princesses were friends, maybe the princes were too.

Tenten sighed. She was laying on her back on one of the couches and stared at the ceiling as if there was actually something interesting to watch. "Well how do we get out of here then?"

Sakura was almost about to answer, but the blue haired princess beat her to it. "We don't."

This got Ino and Tenten to look at her, clearly confused. Sakura was slightly more on top of the situation, as she remembered the remark about there being a prince for their heads.

Again, Hinata needed to explain. "Our kingdoms have marked us as traitors and there is a price for our heads. Knowing my family and yours as well, it is absolutely pointless whether or not we're returned dead or alive. The word has spread on the dark side, so we can't just go about walking away on this side either. Right now, we can't leave."

Ino blinked for a few times, her confusion slowly turning into frustration. "So that's it? We just stay here?!"

The blonde princess had a point. Did they really run away just to be prisoners in another castle?

"Well they did kind of save us" Hinata shyly mumbled, not knowing what kind of a response she would get.

"They knew that if anyone else were to discover our identities, we would've most likely been killed on sight. And since we're on the dark side, and they hold the absolute power here, they have zero obligations to return us." Hinata tried to explain, her eyes drawn to the warm flames of the fireplace.

 _'Who has a fireplace on in the middle of a summery day?' She thought to herself._

"And I've been promised that we're safe here."

Now Hinata here had some interesting knowledge that interested the other girls.

Sakura raised a questioning brow. "Who promised you that?"

"Uhh.." Hinata's pale skin went from white to a blushing rose in a nanosecond. "O-one of the princes."

"Ooh she's blushing AND stuttering, this is going to be delicious!" Ino squealed and moved closer to the blue haired princess, her eyes glittering from curiosity.

Sakura was also very curious, Tenten didn't care that much but did turn to Hinata for an explanation. Hinata avoided the glances of her friends by staring at and tapping the fingertips of her both index fingers together, which eventually was stopped by Ino, who grabbed both her hands and stuck her face right in front of Hinata's.

"Tell us everything." She ordered Hinata, whose face was now as pink as Sakura's hair.

"I-I.." She hesitated, but couldn't keep quiet while Ino's confronting eyes were right in front of her, staring into her soul.

But before Hinata could even open her mouth, the intense questioning of the blue haired princess was interrupted by a careful knocking on the wooden twin doors that they'd previously entered from. Everyone turned to the doors with wide eyes, surprised by the sudden knocking.

"What do we do?" Sakura quietly whispered, referring to the door that wasn't being opened by them nor by the person or people outside. She didn't know whether to be scared or happy that someone was there.

"Yes?" Ino called out, pulling away from Hinata and walking to the twin doors. Now that the blonde princess took some action, everyone was curious as to who was behind those doors and what did they want.

A quiet, hesitant voice peeped out from behind the doors. "I-I was ordered by prince Naruto to bring you some clean clothes."

Ino cracked the doors slightly. She was met by a short woman with sleek silvery hair, who was basically hiding her face behind a tall pile of clothing. The blonde examined the maid, but her lips curved into a warm, polite smile as she opened the door even more, inviting her in.

"Ah. Please, come in." This was the Ino her friends rarely saw. When she wasn't required to act like a princess, she acted regularly with her friends. That's what they knew, that's what they loved about Ino. Her sass, her attitude and everything about her. But the courteous, princess-y side of Ino was something that they almost never saw. They of course knew that they would've all acted the same way, it was just weird being around other princesses doing the same things they were taught to do. When they were together, etiquette and manners weren't the things they thought about. Their friendship was an escape from their everyday lives.

Hesitantly the maid peeked her greyish blue eyes from behind the clothing pile as she walked in. Ino closed the door after she was inside, but she'd stopped walking when Ino turned back to her. Her body was rigid and she looked uncomfortable.

Maybe it was because she was staring at four girls in their bath robes, who were all staring at her in return. Maybe it was not. Who knew what sort of tension four nearly naked women could cause.

"I-I'm sorry to interrupt you, but I was asked to bring you these clothes.." She stammered, her arms shaking as she held the huge pile of clothing in her slender arms.

Sakura immediately got out of her seat and rushed to the girl, taking as many clothes from the top of the pile as she could.

"N-no, you shouldn't have!" The maid tried to protest, but was met with Sakura's warm smile.

"It's okay, I wanted to." The pink princess calmly told her, laying down the pile of clothing on the dark table. The maid held her head down as she nodded and brought the rest of the clothes onto the table.

For a while their hands ventured in the jungle of clothing, pulling chiffon and silk off of each other to uncover more clothing underneath.

"If this castle is only used by the four guys, why in the world are there this many women's clothes?" Ino asked, lifting up a beautiful jewelled dress from the pile of random clothing items. There was everything from astonishingly beautiful gowns to more casual every day wear to even underwear and shoes.

The maid cleared her throat as she looked at the pile of clothing that was now being examined by the four girls, nervously fiddling the hem of her burgundy pleated skirt.

"They are the only clothes we could bring you. They've been left here by women over the years, so pick out what you want." Her soft voice was still quiet and her head was still down, as if she was avoiding eye contact the best she could.

"Why would anyone leave such pretty clothes behind?" Sakura wondered, holding a bundle of fabric that resembled a ball gown in her hands. They were all so beautiful and looked expensive, why would anyone leave such pieces behind.

The maid gulped. "Well, the princes…get around, if you understand."

Sakura knew exactly what she was talking about and instantly dropped the clothing item from her hands, now looking at the large amount of clothes with newly found disgust.

"Gross."

"You're saying these were left by.." Ino didn't even feel like finishing her sentence. But that did explain all the underwear that was mixed in with the clothes.

"Y-yes.." the maid shyly responded. "But I hand-washed them for you so they should be all clean!"

Hinata looked at the silver haired maid, confused. "You washed all of these yourself?"

"Mhm." She answered with a small nod, earning the blue haired princess' respect.

It was _a lot_ of clothes.

"Even if they're clean, some these are going to need some serious alterations if we don't want to strut around wearing ball gowns." Ino mumbled, closely examining a white dress in her hands.

"You do remember my deep hate for dresses, right?" Tenten asked, mostly reminding her that she most likely wouldn't wear any of the clothing items that were in the pile.

"Mhm, I do." The blonde princess simply replied, placing the white dress aside from the other clothes. She had a plan, she could make it work.

"I'll make it work." She stated and placed her hands on her hips. Her brows furrowed as she closely looked at the clothes she'd sorted and pulled out of the pile. There were poofy skirts, different colours and something sticking out that looked like the heel of a shoe.

Ino handed Hinata a pair of skin tight black shorts that were used as a shield from wandering eyes if one's dress was excessively flowy.

"You take those aaand.." Ino's eyes were intensely searching through the pile.

"This!" Victory gleamed in her blonde eyes as she finally found what she was looking for and handed Hinata the dress she'd been looking for. Hinata looked at the dress, her eyes gliding up and down the piece of fabric that looked way too long for her.

Ino saw how Hinata looked hesitant and waved her hand as she threw the dress to the girl.

"Don't worry, I have a plan."

Suddenly Ino turned to the maid, who hadn't moved an inch after the last time they'd spoken to her. She stood still with her hands neatly placed behind her back, as if she was waiting to be dismissed.

"What's your name?" She kindly asked the maid, who was very surprised by the blonde princess' question.

"Myra, miss."

"Myra." Ino pronounced. It was a beautiful name that fit the silvery haired girl perfectly.

"Would you be so kind as to getting me a pair of scissors and do you have a sewing machine here?"

* * *

❦ Goddess of Glam


End file.
